fornia 
lal 

y 


£  In. 


Novels  are  sweets.  All  people  with  healthy  literary  appetites  love  them— almost  all  women ;  a  vast  number 
of  clever,  hard-headed  men.  Judges,  bishops,  chancellors,  mathematicians,  are  notorious  novel  readers,  as 
well  as  young  boys  and  sweet  girls,  and  their  kind,  tender  mothers.— W.  M.  TIIAOKEBAY,  in  Roundabout  Papers. 


HARPER'S  LIBRARY  OF  SELECT  NOVELS. 


Harper's  Select  Library  of  Fiction  rarely  includes  a  work  which  has  not  a  decided  charm,  either  from  the 
clearness  of  the  story,  the  significance  of  the  theme,  or  the  charm  of  the  execution ;  so  that  on  setting  out 
upon  a  journey,  or  providing  for  the  recreation  of  a  solitary  evening,  one  ia  wise  and  safe  in  procuring,  the 
later  numbers  of  this  attractive  series.— Boston  TrantcripL 


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PRICE 

Pelham.  By  Bulwer $  75 

The  Disowned.  By  Bulwer 75 

Devereux.  By  Bulwer 50 

Paul  Clifford.  By  Bulwer 50 

Eugene  Aram.  By  Bulwer 50 

The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii.  By  Bulwer  50 

The  Czarina.  By  Mrs.  Hofland 50 

Rienzi.  By  Bulwer 75 

Self- Devotion.  By  Miss  Campbell 50 

The  Nabob  at  Home 50 

Ernest  Maltravers.  By  Bulwer 50 

Alice ;  or,  The  Mysteries.  By  Bulwer  50 

The  Last  of  the  Barons.  By  Bulwer.. 1  00 

Forest  Days.  By  James 50 

Adam  Brown,  the  Merchant.  By  H. 

Smith 50 

Pilgrims'  of  the  Rhine.  By  Bulwer. ...  25 

The  Home.  By  Miss  Bremer 50 

The  Lost  Ship.  By  Captain  Neale 75 

The  False  Heir.  By  James 50 

The  Neighbors.  By  Miss  Bremer 50 

Nina.  By  Miss  Bremer 50 

The  President's  Daughters.  By  Miss 

Bremer 25 

The  Banker's  Wife.  By  Mrs.  Gore....  50 

The  Birthright.  By  Mrs.  Gore 25 

New  Sketches  of  Every-day  Life.  By 

Miss  Bremer 50 

Arabella  Stuart.  By  James 50 

The  Grumbler.  By  Miss  Pickering....  50 

The  Unloved  One.  By  Mrs.  Hofland.  50 

Jack  of  the  Mill.  By  William  Howitt.  25 

The  Heretic.  By  Lajetchnikoff. 50 

The  Jew.  By  Spindler 75 

Arthur.  BySue 75 

Chatsworth.  By  Ward 50 

4.  The  Prairie  Bird.     By  C.  A.  Murray.  1  00 

5.  Amy  Herbert.     By  Miss  Sewell 50 

Rose  d'Albret.     By  James 50 

The  Triumphs  of  Time.  By  Mrs.  Marsh  75 

The  H Family.     By  Miss  Bremer  50 

The  Grandfather.     By  Miss  Pickering.  50 

Arrah  Neil.     ByJaines 50 

The  Jilt 50 

Tales  from  the  German 50 

Arthur  Arundel.     By  H.  Smith 50 

Agincourt.     By  James 50 

The  Regent's  Daughter 50 

The  Maid  of  Honor 50 

Sana.     By  De  Beauvoir 50 

Look  to  the  End.     By  Mrs.  Ellis 50 

The  Improvisatore.    By  Andersen 60 

The  Gambler's  Wife.    "By  Mrs.  Grey. .  50 

Veronica.     By  Zschokke "...  50 

Zoe.     By  Miss  Jewsbury 50 

Wyoming 50 

De"  Rohan.    BySue 50 

Self.    By  the  Author  of  "  Cecil " 75 

The  Smuggler.     By  James 75 

The  Breach  of  Promise 50 


58.  Parsonage  of  Mora.    By  Miss  Bremer®  25 

59.  A  Chance  Medley.    By  T.  C.  Grattan    50 

60.  The  White  Slave 1  00 

61.  The  Bosom  Friend.     By  Mrs.  Grey..     50 

62.  Amaury.     By  Dumas 50 

63.  The  Author's  Daughter.     By  Mary 

Howitt 25 

64.  Only  a  Fiddler !  &c.    By  Andersen. ...     50 

65.  The  Whiteboy.     By  Mrs.  Hall 50 

66.  The  Foster-Brother.    Edited  by  L<Mgh 

Hunt .T..     50 

67.  Love  and  Mesmerism.     By  H.  Smith.     75 

68.  Ascanio.     By  Dumas 75 

69.  Lady   of    Milan.       Edited    by  Mrs. 

Thomson 75 

70.  The  Citizen  of  Prague 1  00 

71.  The  Royal  Favorite.     By  Mrs.  Gore.     50 

72.  The  Queen  of  Denmark.  By  Mrs.  Gore    50 

73.  The  Elves,  &c.     ByTieck 50 

74,75.  The  Step-Mother.     By  James 1  25 

76.  Jessie's  Flirtations 50 

77.  Chevalier  d'Harmental.     By  Dumas.     50 

78.  Peers  and  Parvenus.     By  Mrs.  Gore.     50 

79.  The  Commander  of  Malta.    BySue..     50 

80.  The  Female  Minister 50 

81.  Emilia  Wyndham.     By  Mrs.  Marsh.     75 

82.  The  Bush-Ranger.  By  Chas.Rowcroft"50 

83.  The  Chronicles  of  Clovernook 25 

84:.  Genevieve.     By  Lamartine 25 

85.  Livonian  Tales 25 

86.  Lettice  Arnold.     By  Ms.  Marsh 25 

87.  Father  Darcy.     By  Mrs.  Marsh 75 

88.  Leontine.     By  Mrs.  Maberly 50 

89.  Heidelberg.     By  James 50 

90.  Lucretia.     By  Bulwer 75 

91.  Beanchamp.     By  James 75 

92,94.  Fortescue.    By  Knowles 1  00 

93.  Daniel  Dennison,&c.  By  Mrs.  Hofland    50 

95.  Cinq-Mars.     By  De  Vigny 50 

96.  Woman's  Trials.     By  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall    75 

97.  The  Castle  of  Ehrenstein.     By  James    50 

98.  Marriage.     By  Miss  S.  Ferrier 50 

99.  Roland  Cashel.     By  Lever I  25 

100.  Martins  of  Cro' Martin.     By  Lever...  1  25 

101.  Russell.     By  James 50 

102.  A  Simple  Story.  „  By  Mrs.  Inchbald..     50 

103.  Norman's  Bridge.    By  Mrs.  Marsh...     50 

104.  Alamance 50 

105.  Margaret  Graham.     By  James 25 

106.  The  Wayside  Cross.    By  E.  H.  Mil- 

man .* 25 

107.  The  Convict.     By  James 50 

108.  Midsummer  Eve."  By  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall    50 

1 09.  Jane  Eyre.     By  Currer  Bell 75 

1 10.  The  Last  of  the  Fairies.     By  James. .     25 

111.  Sir  Theodore  Broughton.     By  James     50 

112.  Self-Control.     By  Mary  Brunton 75 

113,114.   Harold.     By  Bul'wer 1  00 

115.  Brothers  and  Sisters.  By  Miss  Bremer     50 

116.  Gowrie.     By  James 50 


Harper's  Library  of  Select  Novels. 


117. 
118. 

119. 
120. 
121. 
122, 

123. 
124. 
125, 
127. 
128. 
129. 
130. 
131. 
132. 
133. 
134. 
135. 
136. 
137. 
138. 
139. 
140. 
141. 
142. 
143. 
144. 
145. 
146. 
147. 

148. 

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152. 
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154. 
155. 
156. 
157. 
158. 

159. 
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166. 
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168. 
169. 
170. 
171. 

172. 
173. 
174. 
175. 
176, 
178. 
179. 
180. 


A  Whim  and  its  Consequences.    By 

James $  50 

Three  Sisters  and  Three  Fortunes. 

ByG.  H.  Lewes 75 

The  Discipline  of  Life 50 

Thirty  Years  Since.     By  James 75 

Mary  Barton.     By  Mrs.  Gaskell 50 

The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond.     By 

Thackeray » 25 

The  Forgery.     By  James 60 

The  Midnight  Sou.    By  Miss  Bremer  25 

126.  The  Caxtons.     By  Bulwer 75 

Mordaunt  Hall.     By  Mrs.  Marsh 50 

My  Uncle  the  Curate 50 

The  Woodman.     By  James 75 

The  Green  Hand.     A  "  Short  Yam  "  75 

Sidonia  the  Sorceress.    By  Meinhold  1  00 

Shirley.     By  Currer  Bell 1  00 

The  Ogilvies 50 

Constance  Lyndsay.    ByG.  C.  H 60 

Sk  Edward  Graham.  By  Miss  Sinclair.  1  00 

Hands  not  Hearts.  By  Miss  Wilkinson.  50 

The  Wilmingtons.     By  Mrs.  Marsh..  60 

Ned  Allen.    ByD.  Hannay 50 

Night  and  Morning.     By  Bulwer 75 

The  Maid  of  Orleans 75 

Antonina.    By  Wilkie  Collins 50 

Zanoni.     By  Bulwer 50 

Reginald  Hastings.     By  Warburton..  50 

Pride  and  Irresolution 50 

The  Old  Oak  Chest.     By  James 50 

Julia  Howard.    By  Mrs.  Martin  Bell.  60 
Adelaide  Lindsay.     Edited  by  Mrs. 

Marsh 60 

Petticoat  Government.   By  Mrs.  Trol- 

lope 50 

The  Luttrells.     By  F.  Williams 50 

Singleton  Fontenoy,  R.  N.  By  Hannay  50 

Olive.  By  the  Author  of  "The  Ogilvies"  50 

Henry  Sineaton.     By  James '  50 

Time,  the  Avenger.     By  Mrs.  Marsh.  50 

The  Commissioner.     By  James 1  00 

The  Wife's  Sister.     By  Mrs.  Hubback  50 

The  Gold  Worshipers 50 

The  Daughter  of  Night.    By  Fullom.  60 
Stuart  of  Dunleath.     By  Hon.  Caro- 
line Norton 50 

ArthurConway.  ByCapt.E.H.Milman  50 

The  Fate.     By  James 50 

The  Lady  and  the  Priest.     By  Mrs. 

Maberly 60 

Aims  and  Obstacles.    By  James 50 

The  Tutor's  Ward 50 

Florence  Sackville.    By  Mrs.  Burbury  75 

Ravenscliffe.     By  Mrs".  Marsh 50 

Maurice  Tiernay.     By  Lever 1  00 

The  Head  of  the  Family.     By  Miss 

Mulock 75 

Darien.     By  Warburton 60 

Falkenburg 75 

TheDaltons.     By  Lever 1  60 

Ivar;  or,  The  Skjuts-Boy.     By  Miss 

Carlen 60 

Pequinillo.     Byjames 50 

Anna  Hammer.     ByTemme 50 

A  Life  of  Vicissitudes.     By  James...  50 

Henry  Esmond.     By  Thackeray 50 

177.  My  Novel.     By  Bulwer 1  60 

Katie  Stewart 25 

Castle  Avon.     By  Mrs.  Marsh 50 

Agnes  Sorel.    By  James 50 


181.  Agatha's  Husband.     By  the  Author  of 

"Olive" $  60 

182.  Villette.     By  Currer  Bell 75 

183.  Lover's  Stratagem.     By  Miss  Carlen.  60 

184.  Clouded    Happiness.    "  By  Countess 

DOrsay 50 

185.  Charles  Auchester.    A  Memorial 75 

186.  Lady  Lee's  Widowhood 50 

187.  Dodd  Family  Abroad.     By  Lever....!  25 

188.  Sir  Jasper  Carew.     By  Lever 75 

189.  Quiet  Heart 25 

190.  Aubrey.     By  Mrs.  Marsh 75 

191.  Ticonderoga.     By  James 50 

192.  Hard  Times.     By  Dickens 50 

193.  The  Young  Husband.     By  Mrs.  Grey  60 

194.  The  Mother's  Recompense.    By  Grace 

Aguilar 75 

195.  Avillion,  &c.     By  Miss  Mulock 1  25 

196.  North  and  South.     By  Mrs.  Gaskell.  50 

197.  Country  Neighborhood.    By  Miss  Du- 

puy ". 50 

198.  Constance  Herbert.  ByMissJewsbury.  50 

199.  The  Heiress  of  Haughton.     By  Mrs. 

Marsh 50 

200.  The  Old  Dominion.     By  James 60 

201.  John   Halifax.      By  the  Author  of 

"Olive,"  &c 75 

202.  Evelyn  Ma'rston.     By  Mrs.  Marsh....  60 

203.  Fortunes  of  Glencore.     By  Lever 50 

204.  Leonora  d'Orco.     By  James 60 

205.  Nothing  New.     By  Miss  Mulock 60 

206.  TheRoseofAshurst.    By  Mrs.  Marsh  50 

207.  The  Athelings.     By  Mrs.  Oliphant....  75 

208.  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life 75 

209.  My  Lady  Ludlow.     By  Mrs.  Gaskell.  25 

210.  211.  Gerald  Fitzgerald.     By  Lever...  60 

212.  A  Life  for  a  Life.     By  Miss  Mulock..  50 

213.  Sword  and  Gown.    By  Geo.  Lawrence  25 

214.  Misrepresentation.  By  AnnaH.Drury.l  00 

215.  The  Mill  on  the  Floss.  By  George  Eliot  75 

216.  One  of  Them.     By  Lever 76 

217.  A  Day's  Ride.     By  Lever 50 

218.  Notice  to  Quit.     By  Wills 60 

219.  A  Strange  Story 1  00 

220.  Brown,  Jones,  and   Robinson.      By 

Trollope 60 

221.  Abel  Drake's  Wife.  By  John  Saunders  75 

222.  Olive  Blake's  Good  Work.     By  J.  C. 

Jeaff'reson 75 

223.  The  Professor's  Lady 25 

224.  Mistress  and  Maid.     By  Miss  Mulock  50 

225.  Aurora  Floyd.     By  M.  E.  Braddon ..  75 

226.  Barrington.     By  Lever 75 

227.  Sylvia's  Lovers.     By  Mrs.  Gaskell....  75 

228.  A  First  Friendship 50 

229.  A  Dark  Night's  Work.  By  Mrs.  Gaskell  50 

230.  Countess  Gisela.     ByE.  Marlitt 25 

231.  St.Olave's.     By  Eliza  Tabor 75 

232.  A  Point  of  Honor 50 

233.  Live  it  Down.     BvJeaffreson 1  00 

234.  Martin  Pole.     By'Saunders 60 

235.  Mary  Lyndsay.     By  Lady  Ponsonby.  60 

236.  Eleanor's  Victory.   By  M.  E.  Braddon  75 

237.  Rachel  Ray.     By  Trollope 50 

238.  John  Marchmont's  Legacy.     By  M. 

E.  Braddon 75 

239.  Annie    Warleigh's    Fortunes.      By 

Holme  Lee 75 

240.  The  Wife's  Evidence.     By  Wills 60 

241.  Barbara's  History.      By  Amelia  B. 

Edwards 75 


Harper's  Library  of  Sekct  Novels. 


242. 
243. 
244. 

245. 
246. 
247. 
248. 
249. 
250. 

251. 

252. 
253. 
254. 
255. 
256. 
257. 
258. 
259. 
260. 

261. 

262. 


264. 
265. 
266. 
267. 

268. 
269. 

270. 

271. 

272. 
273. 
274. 
275. 
276. 
277. 
278. 

279. 
280. 

281. 
282. 
283. 
284. 

285. 
286. 
287. 


289. 
290. 
291. 
292. 
293. 
294. 
295. 
296. 
297. 
298. 
299. 
300. 


Denis  Duval.     By  Thackeray 

Maurice  Dering.     By  Geo.  Lawrence 


Cousin  Phillis $  25 

What  Will  He  Do  With  It?  ByBulwer.l  50 
The  Ladder  of  Life.  By  Amelia  B. 

Edwards 50 

25 

ing.     ±$y  lieo.  .Lawrence  50 

Margaret  Denzil's  History 75 

Quite  Alone.  By  George  Augustus  Sala  75 

Mattie:  a  Stray 75 

My  Brother's  Wife.     By  Amelia  B. 

Edwards 50 

Uncle  Silas.     ByJ.  S.  Le  Fanu 75 

Lovel  the  Widower.     By  Thackeray..  25 

Miss  Mackenzie.  ByAnthonyTrollope  50 

On  Guard.     By  Annie  Thomas 60 

Theo  Leigh.     By  Annie  Thomas 50 

Denis  Doone.     By  Annie  Thomas....  50 

Belial 50 

Carry's  Confession 75 

Miss  Carew.    By  Amelia  B.  Edwards.  50 
Hand  and  Glove.     By  Amelia  B.  Ed- 
wards   50 

Guy  Deverell.  By  J.  S.  Le  Fanu....  50 
Half  a  Million  of  Money.  By  Amelia 

B.  Edwards 75 

The  Belton  Estate.    By  A.  Trollope...  50 

Agnes.     By  Mrs.  Oliphant 75 

Walter  Goring.     By  Annie  Thomas..  75 

Maxwell  Drewitt.  By  Mrs.  J.  H.  Riddell  75 

The  Toilers  of  the  Sea.  By  Victor  Hugo  75 

Miss  Marjoribanks.  By  Mrs.  Oliphant.  50 
True  History  of  a  Little  Jlagamuffin. 

By  James  Greenwood 50 

Gilbert  Rugge.  By  the  Author  of  "A 

First  Friendship" 1  00 

Sans  Merci.  By  Geo.  Lawrence 50 

Phemie  Keller.  By  Mrs.  J.  H.  Riddell  50 

Land  at  Last.  By  Edmund  Yates. ...  50 

Felix  Holt,  the  Radical.  By  Geo.  Eliot.  75 

Bound  to  the  Wheel.  By  John  Saunders  75 

All  in  the  Dark.  By  J.  S.  Le  Fanu.  50 

Kissing  the  Rod.  By  Edmund  Yates  75 
The  Race  for  Wealth.  By  Mrs.  J.  H. 

Riddell 75 

Lizzie  Lorton  of  Greyrigg.  By  Mrs. 

Linton 75 

The  Beauclercs,  Father  and  Son.  By 

C.  Clarke 50 

Sir  Brook  Fossbrooke.  By  Chas.  Lever  50 

Madonna  Mary.     By  Mrs.  Oliphant  .  50 

Cradock  No  well.  By  R.D.Blackmore.  75 
Bernthal.     From  the  German  of  L. 

Muhlbach 50 

Rachel's  Secret 75 

The Claverings.  ByAnthonyTrollope.  50 
The  Village  on  the  Cliff.  By  Miss 

Thackeray 25 

Played  Out.  By  Annie  Thomas 75 

Black  Sheep.  By  Edmund  Yates 50 

Sowing  the  Wind.  By  E.Lynn  Linton.  50 

Nora  and  Archibald  Lee 50 

Raymond's  Heroine 50 

Mr.Wynyard'sWard.  By  Holme  Lee.  50 

Alec  Forbes.  By  George  Macdonald  75 

No  Man's  Friend.  By  F.W.Robinson.  75 

Called  to  Account.  By  Annie  Thomas  50 

Caste 50 

The  Curate's  Discipline.  By  Mrs.Eiloart  50 

Circe.  By  Babington  White 50 

The  Tenants  of  Malory.  By  J.  S.  Le 

Fanu 60 


301.  Carlyon's  Year.     By  James  Payn $  25 

302.  The  Waterdale  Neighbors 50 

303.  Mabel's  Progress 50 

304.  Guild  Court.     By  Geo.  Macdonald...  56 

305.  The  Brothers'  Bet.     By  Miss  Carlen.  25 

306.  Playing  for  High  Stakes.     By  Annie 

Thomas.     Illustrated 25 

307.  Margaret's  Engagement 50 

308.  One  of  the  Family.     By  James  Payn.  25 

309.  Five  Hundred  Pounds  Reward.     By 

a  Barrister 50 

310.  Brownlows.     By  Mrs.  Oliphant 38 

311.  Charlotte's    Inheritance.      Sequel    to 

"  Birds  of  Prey. "    By  Miss  Braddon  50 

312.  Jeanie's  Quiet  Life.    By  Eliza  Tabor.  50 

313.  Poor  Humanity.    By  F.  W.  Robinson  50 

314.  Brakespeare.     By  Geo.  Lawrence 50 

315.  A  Lost  Name.     ByJ.  S.  Le  Fanu....  50 

316.  Love  or  Marriage?    By  W.  Black....  60 

317.  Dead  -  Sea  Fruit.     By  Miss  Braddon. 

Illustrated 50 

318.  The  Dower  House.  By  Annie  Thomas  50 

319.  The  Bramleighs  of  Bishop's  Folly.  By 

Lever * 50 

320.  Mildred.     By  Georgiana  M.  Craik....  50 

321.  Nature's  Nobleman.     By  the  Author 

of  "Rachel's  Secret" 50 

322.  Kathleen.     By  the  Author  of  "Ray- 

mond's Heroine" 50 

323.  ThatBoyofNorcott's.  ByChas.Lever  25 

324.  In  Silk  Attire.     By  W.  Black 50 

325.  Hetty.     By  Henry  Kingsley 25 

326.  False  Colors.     By  Annie  Thomas 50 

327.  Meta's  Faith.    By  Eliza  Tabor 60 

328.  Found  Dead.     By  James  Payn 50 

329.  Wrecked  in  Port.     By  Edmund  Yates  50 

330.  The  Minister's  Wife.  By  Mrs.  Oliphant  75 

331.  A  Beggar  on  Horseback.  By  Jas.  Payn  35 

332.  Kitty.     By  M.  Betham  Edwards...'...  50 

333.  Only  Herself.     By  Annie  Thomas....  50 

334.  Hirell.     By  John  Saunders 50 

335.  Under  Foot.     By  Alton  Clyde 50 

336.  So  Runs  the  World  Away."  By  Mrs. 

A.  C.  Steele 50 

337.  Baffled.     By  Julia  Goddard 75 

338.  Beneath  the  Wheels 50 

339.  Stern  Necessity.     By  F.  W.  Robinson  50 

340.  Gwendoline's  Harvest.  By  James  Payn  25 

341.  Kilmeny.     By  William  Black 60 

342.  John:  A  Love  Story.  By  Mrs.  Oliphant  50 

343.  True  to  Herself.    By  F.  W.  Robinson  60 

344.  Veronica.     By  the  Author  of  "Ma- 

bel's Progress  " 50 

345.  A  Dangerous  Guest.     By  the  Author 

of  "Gilbert  Rugge  " 50 

346.  Estelle  Russell 75 

347.  The  Heir  Expectant.     By  the  Author 

of  "Raymond's  Heroine" 50 

348.  Which  is  the  Heroine? 60 

349.  The  Vivian  Romance.     By  Mortimer 

Collins 50 

350.  In  Duty  Bound.    Illustrated 50 

351.  The  Warden  and  Barchester  Towers. 

By  A.  Trollope 75 

352.  From  Thistles  —  Grapes  ?     By  Mrs. 

Eiloart 50 

353.  A  Siren.     By  T.  A.  Trollope 60 

35jt.  Sir  Harry  Hotspur  of  Humblethwaite. 

ByAnthonyTrollope.    Illustrated...  60 

355.  Earl's  Dene.     By  R.  E.  Francillon....  50 

35G.  Daisy  Nichol.     By  Lady  Hardy 50 


4 


Harper's  Library  of  Select  Novels. 


PRICK 

357.  Bred  in  the  Bone.     By  James  Payn.. $  50 

358.  Fenton's  Quest.     By  Miss  Braddon. 

Illustrated 50 

359.  Monarch  of  Mincing  -  Lane.     By  W. 

Black.     Illustrated 50 

360.  A  Life's  Assize.   By  Mrs.  J.  H.  Riddell  50 

361.  Anteros.      By  the  Author  of  "Guy 

Livingstone" 50 

362.  Her  Lord  and  Master.    By  Mrs.  Ross 

Church 50 

363.  Won— Not  Wooed.     By  James  Payn  50 

364.  For  Lack  of  Gold.    By  Chas.  Gibbon  50 

365.  Anne  Furness 75 

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DANIEL  DERONDA. 


J3VOM 


By  GEORGE   ELIOT, 


'ADAM  BEDE,"  "SILAS  MARNER,"  "FELIX  HOLT,"  "ROMOLA,"  "MIDDLEMARCH," 
"THE  MILL  ON  THE  FLOSS,"  &C 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN    SQUARE. 
1876.        ' 


.    YCi 


GEORGE    ELIOT'S    NOVELS. 


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PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

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Copyright,  1876,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


DANIEL    DEKONDA. 


Let  thy  chief  terror  be  of  thine  own  soul : 
There,  'mid  the  throng  of  hurrying  desires 
That  trample  o'er  the  dead  to  seize  their  spoil, 
Lurks  vengeance,  footless,  irresistible 
As  exhalations  laden  with  slow  death, 
And  o'er  the  fairest  troop  of  captured  joys 
Breathes  pallid  pestilence. 


SO  OK  L—THE  SPOILED   CHILD. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Men  can  do  nothing  without  the  make-believe  of  a 
beginning.  Even  Science,  the  strict  measurer,  is  obliged 
to  start  with  a  make-believe  unit,  and  must  fix  on  a 
point  in  the  stars'  unceasing  journey  when  his  sidereal 
clock  shall  pretend  that  time  is  at  Naught  His  less 
accurate  grandmother,  Poetry,  has  always  been  under- 
stood to  start  in  the  middle  ;  but  on  reflection  it  ap- 
pears that  her  proceeding  is  not  very  different  from 
his  ;  since  Science,  too,  reckons  backward  as  well  as 
forward,  divides  his  unit  into  billions,  and  with  his 


clock-finger  at  Naught,  really  sets  off  in  medias  res. 
No  retrospect  will  take  us  to  the  true  beginning  ;  an 
whether  our  prologue  be  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  it  i 


but  a  fraction  of  that  all-presupposing  fact  with  which 
our  story  sets  out. 

WAS  she  beautiful  or  not  beautiful  ?  and  what 
was  the  secret  of  form  or  expression  which  gave 
the  dynamic  quality  to  her  glance?  Was  the 
good  or  the  evil  genius  dominant  in  those  beams  ? 
Probably  the  evil  ;  else  why  was  the  effect  that 
of  unrest  rather  than  of  undisturbed  charm  ? 
Why  was  the  wish  to  look  again  felt  as  coercion, 
and  not  as  a  longing  in  which  the  whole  being 
consents  ? 

She  who  raised  these  questions  in  Daniel  De- 
ronda's  mind  was  occupied  in  gambling  :  not  in 
the  open  air  under  a  southern  sky,  tossing  cop- 
pers on  a  ruined  wall,  with  rags  about  her  limbs  ; 
but  in  one  of  those  splendid  resorts  which  the 
enlightenment  of  ages  has  prepared  for  the  same 
species  of  pleasure  at  a  heavy  cost  of  gilt  mould- 
ings, dark-toned  color,  and  chubby  nudities,  all 
correspondingly  heavy  —  forming  a  suitable  con- 
denser for  human  breath  belonging,  in  great  part, 
to  the  highest  fashion,  and  not  easily  procurable 
to  be  breathed  in  elsewhere  in  the  like  propor- 
tion, at  least  by  persons  of  little  fashion. 

It  was  near  four  o'clock  on  a  September  day, 
so  that  the  atmosphere  was  well  brewed  to  visi- 
ble haze.  There  was  deep  stillness,  broken  only 
by  a  light  rattle,  a  light  chink,  a  small  sweeping 
sound,  and  an  occasional  monotone  in  French, 
such  as  might  be  expected  to  issue  from  an  in- 
geniously constructed  automaton.  Round  two 
long  tables  were  gathered  two  serried  crowds  of 
human  beings,  all  save  one  having  their  faces  and 
attention  bent  on  the  tables.  The  one  exception 
was  a  melancholy  little  boy,  with  his  knees  and 
calves  simply  in  their  natural  clothing  of  epider- 
mis, but  for  the  rest  of  his  person  in  a  fancy 
dress.  He  alone  had  his  face  turned  toward  the 
doorway,  and  fixing  on  it  the  blank  gaze  of  a  be- 


dizened child  stationed  as  a  masquerading  adver- 
tisement on  the  platform  of  an  itinerant  show, 
stood  close  behind  a  lady  deeply  engaged  at  the 
roulette  table. 

About  this  table  fifty  or  sixty  persons  were 
assembled,  many  in  the  outer  rows,  where  there 
was  occasionally  a  deposit  of  new-comers,  being 
mere  spectators,  only  that  one  of  them,  usually 
a  woman,  might  now  and  then  be  observed  put- 
ting down  a  five-franc  piece  with  a  simpering  air, 
just  to  see  what  the  passion  of  gambling  really 
was.  Those  who  were  taking  their  pleasure  at  a 
higher  strength,  and  were  absorbed  in  play,  show- 
ed very  distant  varieties  of  European  type:  Li- 
vonian  and  Spanish,  Graeco-Italian  and  miscel- 
laneous German,  English  aristocratic  and  English 
plebeian.  Here  certainly  was  a  striking  admis- 
sion of  human  equality.  The  white  bejeweled 
fingers  of  an  English  Countess  were  very  near 
touching  a  bony,  yellow,  crab-like  hand  stretch- 
ing a  bared  wrist  to  clutch  a  heap  of  coin — a 
hand  easy  to  sort  with  the  square  gaunt  face, 
deep-set  eyes,  grizzled  eyebrows,  and  ill-combed 
scanty  hair,  which  seemed  a  slight  metamorpho- 
sis of  the  vulture.  And  where  else  would  her 
ladyship  have  graciously  consented  to  sit  by  that 
dry-lipped  feminine  figure,  prematurely  old,  with- 
ered after  short  bloom,  like  her  artificial  flowers, 
holding  a  shabby  velvet  reticule  before  her,  and 
occasionally  putting  in  her  mouth  the  point  with 
which  she  pricked  her  card?  There,  too,  very 
near  the  fair  Countess,  was  a  respectable  Lon- 
don tradesman,  blonde  and  soft-handed,  his  sleek 
hair  scrupulously  parted  behind  and  before,  con- 
scious of  circulars  addressed  to  the  nobility  and 
gentry,  whose  distinguished  patronage  enabled 
him  to  take  his  holidays  fashionably,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  in  their  distinguished  company. 
Not  his  the  gambler's  passion  that  nullifies  ap- 
petite, but  a  well-fed  leisure,  which  in  the  inter- 
vals of  winning  money  in  business  and  spending 
it  showily,  sees  no  better  resource  than  win- 
ning money  in  play  and  spending  it  yet  more 
showily — reflecting  always  that  Providence  had 
never  manifested  any  disapprobation  of  his 
amusement,  and  dispassionate  enough  to  leave 
off  if  the  sweetness  of  winning  much  and  seeing 
others  lose  had  turned  to  the  sourness  of  losing 
much  and  seeing  others  win.  For  the  vice  of 
gambling  lay  in  losing  money  at  it.  In  his  bear- 
ing there  might  be  something  of  the  tradesman, 


2O5vi200 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


but  in  his  pleasures  he  was  fit  to  rank  with  the 
owners  of  the  oldest  titles.  Standing  close  to  his 
chair  was  a  handsome  Italian,  calm,  statuesque, 
reaching  across  him  to  place  the  first  pile  of  na- 
poleons from  a  new  bagful  just  brought  him  by 
an  envoy  with  a  scrolled  mustache.  The  pile 
was  in  half  a  minute  pushed  over  to  an  old  be- 
wigged  woman  with  eyeglasses  pinching  her  nose. 
There  was  a  slight  gleam,  a  faint  mumbling  smile 
about  the  lips  of  the  old  woman ;  but  the  statu- 
esque Italian  remained  impassive,  and — probably 
secure  in  an  infallible  system  which  placed  his 
foot  on  the  neck  of  chance — immediately  pre- 
pared a  new  pile.  So  did  a  man  with  the  air 
of  an  emaciated  beau  or  worn-out  libertine,  who 
looked  at  life  through  one  eyeglass,  and  held  out 
his  hand  tremulously  when  he  asked  for  change. 
It  could  surely  be  no  severity  of  system,  but  rath- 
er some  dream  of  white  crows,  or  the  induction 
that  the  eighth  of  the  month  was  lucky,  which 
inspired  the  fierce  yet  tottering  impulsiveness  of 
his  play. 

But  while  every  single  player  differed  marked- 
ly from  every  other,  there  was  a  certain  uniform 
negativeness  of  expression  which  had  the  effect 
of  a  mask — as  if  they  had  all  eaten  of  some  root 
that  for  the  time  compelled  the  brains  of  each  to 
the  same  narrow  monotony  of  action. 

Deronda's  first  thought  when  his  eyes  fell  on 
this  scene  of  dull,  gas-poisoned  absorption  was 
that  the  gambling  of  Spanish  shepherd-boys  had 
seemed  to  him  more  enviable :  so  far  Rousseau 
might  be  justified  in  maintaining  that  art  and 
science  had  done  a  poor  service  to  mankind.  But 
suddenly  he  felt  the  moment  become  dramatic. 
His  attention  was  arrested  by  a  young  lady  who, 
standing  at  an  angle  not  far  from  him,  was  the 
last  to  whom  his  eyes  traveled.  She  was  bend- 
big  and  speaking  English  to  a  middle-aged  lady 
seated  at  play  beside  her ;  but  the  next  instant 
she  returned  to  her  play,  and  showed  the  full 
height  of  a  graceful  figure,  with  a  face  which 
might  possibly  be  looked  at  without  admiration, 
but  could  hardly  be  passed  with  indifference. 

The  inward  debate  which  she  raised  in  Deronda 
gave  to  his  eyes  a  growing  expression  of  scrutiny, 
tending  farther  and  farther  away  from  the  glow 
of  mingled  undefined  sensibilities  forming  admi- 
ration. At  one  moment  they  followed  the  move- 
ments of  the  figure,  of  the  arms  and  hands,  as 
this  problematic  sylph  bent  forward  to  deposit 
her  stake  with  an  air  of  firm  choice;  and  the 
next  they  returned  to  the  face  which,  at  present 
unaffected  by  beholders,  was  directed  steadily  to- 
ward the  game.  The  sylph  was  a  winner ;  and 
as  her  taper  fingers,  delicately  gloved  in  pale 
gray,  were  adjusting  the  coins  which  had  been 
pushed  toward  her  in  order  to  pass  them  back 
again  to  the  winning  point,  she  looked  round  her 
with  a  survey  too  markedly  cold  and  neutral  not 
to  have  in  it  a  little  of  that  nature  which  we  call 
art  concealing  an  inward  exultation. 

But  in  the  course  of  that  survey  her  eyes  met 
Deronda's,  and  instead  of  averting  them  as  she 
would  have  desired  to  do,  sho  was  unpleasantly 
conscious  that  they  were  arrested — how  long? 
The  darting  sense  that  he  was  measuring  her  and 
looking  down  on  her  as  an  inferior,  that  he  was 
of  different  quality  from  the  human  dross  around 
her,  that  he  felt  himself  in  a  region  outside  and 
above  her,  and  was  examining  her  as  a  specimen 
of  a  lower  order,  roused  a  tingling  resentment 


which  stretched  the  moment  with  conflict.  It 
did  not  bring  the  blood  to  her  cheeks,  but  sent  it 
away  from  her  lips.  She  controlled  herself  by 
the  help  of  an  inward  defiance,  and  without  other 
sign  of  emotion  than  this  lip-paleness  turned  to 
her  play.  But  Deronda's  gaze  seemed  to  have 
acted  as  an  evil-eye.  Her  stake  was  gone.  No 
matter;  she  had  been  winning  ever  since  she 
took  to  roulette  with  a  few  napoleons  at  com- 
mand, and  had  a  considerable  reserve.  She  had 
begun  to  believe  in  her  luck,  others  had  begun  to 
believe  in  it :  she  had  visions  of  being  followed 
by  a  cortege  who  would  worship  her  as  a  goddess 
of  luck  and  watch  her  play  as  a  directing  augury. 
Such  things  had  been  known  of  male  gamblers  ; 
why  should  not  a  woman  have  a  like  supremacy  ? 
Her  friend  and  chaperon  who  had  not  wished  her 
to  play  at  first  was  beginning  to  approve,  only 
administering  the  prudent  advice  to  stop  at  the 
right  moment  and  carry  money  back  to  England 
— advice  to  which  Gwendolen  had  replied  that 
she  cared  for  the  excitement  of  play,  not  the 
winnings.  On  that  supposition  the  present  mo- 
ment ought  to  have  made  the  flood  tide  in  her 
eager  experience  of  gambling.  Yet  when  her 
next  stake  was  swept  away,  she  felt  the  orbits  of 
her  eyes  getting  hot,  and  the  certainty  she  had 
(without  looking)  of  that  man  still  watching  her 
was  something  like  a  pressure  which  begins  to 
be  torturing.  The  more  reason  to  her  why  she 
should  not  flinch,  but  go  on  playing  as  if  she 
were  indifferent  to  loss  or  gain.  Her  friend 
touched  her  elbow  and  proposed  that  they  should 
quit  the  table.  For  reply  Gwendolen  put  ten 
louis  on  the  same  spot:  she  was  in  that  mood 
of  defiance  in  which  the  mind  loses  sight  of  any 
end  beyond  the  satisfaction  of  enraged  resistance, 
and  with  the  puerile  stupidity  of  a  dominant  im- 
pulse includes  luck  among  its  objects  of  defiance. 
Since  she  was  not  winning  strikingly,  the  next 
best  thing  was  to  lose  strikingly.  She  controlled 
her  muscles,  and  showed  no  tremor  of  mouth  or 
hands.  Each  time  her  stake  was  swept  off  she 
doubled  it.  Many  were  now  watching  her,  but 
the  sole  observation  she  was  conscious  of  was 
Deronda's,  who,  though  she  never  looked  toward 
him,  she  was  sure  had  not  moved  away.  Such  a 
drama  takes  no  long  while  to  play  out :  develop- 
ment and  catastrophe  can  often  be  measured  by 
nothing  clumsier  than  the  moment-hand.  "  Faites 
votre  jeu,  mesdames  et  messieurs,"  said  the  auto- 
matic voice  of  destiny  from  between  the  mustache 
and  imperial  of  the  croupier;  and  Gwendolen's 
arm  was  stretched  to  deposit  her  last  poor  heap 
of  napoleons.  "  Le  jeu  ne  va  plus,"  said  destiny. 
And  in  five  seconds  Gwendolen  turned  from  the 
table,  but  turned  resolutely  with  her  face  toward 
Deronda  and  looked  at  him.  There  was  a  smile 
of  irony  in  his  eyes  as  their  glances  met ;  but  it 
was  at  least  better  that  he  should  have  kept  his 
attention  fixed  on  her  than  that  he  should  have 
disregarded  her  as  one  of  an  insect  swarm  who 
had  no  individual  physiognomy.  Besides,  in  spite 
of  his  superciliousness  and  irony,  it  was  difficult 
to  believe  that  he  did  not  admire  her  spirit  as 
well  as  her  person:  he  was  young,  handsome, 
distinguished  in  appearance — not  one  of  those 
ridiculous  and  dowdy  Philistines  who  thought  it 
incumbent  on  them  to  blight  the  gaming  table 
with  a  sour  look  of  protest  as  they  passed  by  it. 
The  general  conviction  that  we  are  admirable 
does  not  easily  give  way  before  a  single  negative  5 


BOOK  I.— THE  SPOILED  CHILD. 


rather  when  any  of  Vanity's  large  family,  male  or 
female,  find  their  performance  received  coldly, 
they  are  apt  to  believe  that  a  little  more  of  it  will 
win  over  the  unaccountable  dissident.  In  Gwen- 
dolen's habits  of  mind  it  had  been  taken  for 
granted  that  she  knew  what  was  admirable,  and 
that  she  herself  was  admired.  This  basis  of  her 
thinking  had  received  a  disagreeable  concussion, 
and  reeled  a  little,  but  was  not  easily  to  be  over- 
thrown. 

In  the  evening  the  same  room  was  more  sti- 
flingly  heated,  was  brilliant  with  gas  and  with  the 
costumes  of  many  ladies  who  floated  their  trains 
along  it  or  were  seated  on  the  ottomans. 

The  Nereid  in  sea-green  robes  and  silver  orna 
ments,  with  a  pale  sea-green  feather  fastened  in 
silver  falling  backward  over  her  green  hat  and 
light  brown  hair,  was  Gwendolen  Harleth.  She 
was  under  the  wing,  or  rather  soared  by  the  shoul 
der,  of  the  lady  who  had  sat  by  her  side  at  the  rou 
lette  table ;  and  with  them  was  a  gentleman  with  a 
white  mustache  and  clipped  hair:  solid-browed, 
stiff,  and  German.  They  were  walking  about  or 
standing  to  chat  with  acquaintances ;  and  Gwen- 
dolen was  much  observed  by  the  seated  groups. 

"A  striking  girl— that  Miss  Harleth— unlike 
others." 

"  Yes ;  she  has  got  herself  up  as  a  sort  of  ser- 
pent now,  all  green  and  silver,  and  winds  her  neck 
about  a  little  more  than  usual." 

"  Oh,  she  must  always  be  doing  something  ex- 
traordinary. She  is  that  kind  of  girl,  I  fancy. 
Do  you  think  her  pretty,  Mr.  Vandernoodt  ?" 

"  Very.  A  man  might  risk  hanging  for  her — 
I  mean,  a  fool  might." 

"  You  like  a  nez  retrousse  then,  and  long  nar- 
row eyes  ?" 

"  When  they  go  with  such  an  ensemble." 

"  The  ensemble  du  serpent  /" 

"  If  you  will.  Woman  was  tempted  by  a  ser- 
pent :  why  not  man  ?" 

"  She  is  certainly  very  graceful.  But  she  wants 
a  tinge  of  color  in  her  cheeks :  it  is  a  sort  of  La- 
mia beauty  she  has." 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  think  her  complexion  one 
of  her  chief  charms.  It  is  a  warm  paleness :  it 
looks  thoroughly  healthy.  And  that  delicate  nose 
with  its  gradual  little  upward  curve  is  distracting. 
And  then  her  mouth — there  never  was  a  prettier 
mouth,  the  lips  curl  backward  so  finely,  eh,  Mack- 
worth  ?" 

"Think  so?  I  can  not  endure  that  sort  of 
mouth.  It  looks  so  self-complacent,  as  if  it 
knew  its  own  beauty — the  curves  are  too  im- 
movable. I  like  a  mouth  that  trembles  more." 

"  For  my  part,  I  think  her  odious,"  said  a  dow- 
ager. "  It  is  wonderful  what  unpleasant  girls  get 
into  vogue.  Who  are  these  Langeus  ?  Does  any 
body  know  them  ?" 

"  They  are  quite  comme  il  faut.  I  have  dined 
with  them  several  times  at  the  Rmsie.  The  Bar- 
oness is  English.  Miss  Harleth  calls  her  cousin. 
The  girl  herself  is  thoroughly  well-bred,  and  as 
clever  as  possible." 

"  Dear  me !    And  the  Baron  ?" 

"  A  very  good  furniture  picture." 

"  Your  Baroness  is  always  at  the  roulette  table," 
said  Mackworth.  "  I  fancy  she  has  taught  the 
girl  to  gamble." 

"  Oh,  the  old  woman  plays  a  very  sober  game ; 
drops  a  ten-franc  piece  here  and  there.  The  girl  : 
is  more  headlong.  But  it  is  only  a  freak." 


"  I  hear  she  has  lost  all  her  winnings  to-day. 
Are  they  rich  ?  Who  knows  ?" 

"Ah,  who  knows?  Who  knows  that  about 
any  body  ?"  said  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  moving  off  to 
join  the  Langens. 

The  remark  that  Gwendolen  wound  her  neck 
about  more  than  usual  this  evening  was  true. 
But  it  was  not  that  she  might  carry  out  the  ser- 
pent idea  more  completely :  it  was  that  she  watch- 
ed for  any  chance  of  seeing  Deronda,  so  that  she 
might  inquire  about  this  stranger,  under  whose 
measuring  gaze  she  was  still  wincing.  At  last 
her  opportunity  came. 

"  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  you  know  every  body,"  said 
Gwendolen,  not  too  «agerly,  rather  with  a  certain 
languor  of  utterance  which  she  sometimes  gave  to 
her  clear  soprano.  "  Who  is  that  near  the  door  ?" 

"  There  are  half  a  dozen  near  the  door.  Do  you 
mean  that  old  Adonis  in  the  George  the  Fourth 
wig?" 

"  No,  no ;  the  dark-haired  young  man  on  the 
right,  with  the  dreadful  expression." 

"  Dreadful,  do  you  call  it  ?  I  think  he  is  an 
uncommonly  fine  fellow." 

"  But  who  is  he  ?" 

"  He  is  lately  come  to  our  hotel  with  Sir  Hugo 
Mallinger." 

"Sir  Hugo  Mallinger?" 

"  Yes.     Do  you  know  him  ?" 

"No."  (Gwendolen  colored  slightly.)  "He 
has  a  place  near  us,  but  he  never  comes  to  it. 
What  did  you  say  was  the  name  of  that  gentle- 
man near  the  door  ?" 

"  Deronda — Mr.  Deronda." 

"  What  a  delightful  name !  Is  he  an  English- 
man ?" 

"  Yes.  He  is  reported  to  be  rather  closely  re- 
lated to  the  Baronet.  You  are  interested  in  him  ?" 

"  Yes.  I  think  he  is  not  like  young  men  in 
general." 

'  And  you  don't  admire  young  men  in  general  ?" 

1  Not  in  the  least.  I  always  know  what  they 
will  say.  I  can't  at  all  guess  what  this  Mr.  De- 
ronda would  say.  What  does  he  say  ?" 

"  Nothing,  chiefly.  I  sat  with  his  party  for  a 
good  hour  last  night  on  the  terrace,  and  he  never 
spoke — and  was  not  smoking  either.  He  looked 
bored." 

'Another  reason  why  I  should  like  to  know 
him.  I  am  always  bored." 

"  I^hould  think  he  would  be  charmed  to  have 
an  introduction.  Shall  I  bring  it  about?  Will 
you  allow  it,  Baroness  ?" 

"  Why  not  ? — since  he  is  related  to  Sir  Hugo 
Mallinger.  It  is  a  new  role  of  yours,  Gwendolen, 
to  be  always  bored,"  continued  Madame  Von  Lan- 
gen,  when  Mr.  Vandernoodt  had  moved  away. 
Until  now  you  have  always  seemed  eager  about 
something  from  morning  till  night." 

"That  is  just  because  I  am  bored  to  death, 
[f  I  am  to  leave  off  play,  I  must  break  my  arm  or 
my  collar-bone.  I  must  make  something  happen ; 
unless  you  will  go  into  Switzerland  and  take  me 
up  the  Matterhorn." 

"  Perhaps  this  Mr.  Deronda's  acquaintance  will 
do  instead  of  the  Matterhorn." 

"  Perhaps." 

But  Gwendolen  did  not  make  Deronda's  ac- 
quaintance on  this  occasion.  Mr.  Vandernoodt 
did  not  succeed  in  bringing  him  up  to  her  that 
evening,  and  when  she  re-entered  her  own  room 
she  found  a  letter  recalling  her  home. 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


CHAPTER  H. 

This  man  contrives  a  secret  'twist  us  two, 
That  he  may  quell  me  with  his  meeting  eyes 
Like  one  who  quells  a  lioness  at  bay. 

THIS  was  the  letter  Gwendolen  found  on  her 
table: 

DEAREST  CHILD, — I  have  been  expecting  to  hear 
from  you  for  a  week.  In  your  last  you  said 
the  Langens  thought  of  going  to  Baden.  How 
could  you  be  so  thoughtless  as  to  leave  me  in 
uncertainty  about  your  address?  I  am  in  the 
greatest  anxiety  lest  this  should  not  reach  you. 
In  any  case  you  were  to  come  home  at  the  end  of 
September,  and  I  must  now  entreat  you  to  return 
as  quickly  as  possible,  for  if  you  spent  all  your 
money  it  would  be  out  of  my  power  to  send  you  any 
more,  and  you  must  not  borrow  of  the  Langens ; 
for  I  could  not  repay  them.  This  is  the  sad 
truth,  my  child — I  wish  I  could  prepare  you  for 
it  better — but  a  dreadful  calamity  has  befallen 
us  all.  You  know  nothing  about  business  and 
will  not  understand  it;  but  Grapnell  and  Co. 
have  failed  for  a  million,  and  we  are  totally 
ruined — your  aunt  Gascoigne  as  well  as  I,  only 
that  your  uncle  has  his  benefice,  so  that  by  put- 
ting down  their  carriage  and  getting  interest  for 
the  boys,  the  family  can  go  on.  All  the  property 
our  poor  father  saved  for  us  goes  to  pay  the 
liabilities.  There  is  nothing  I  can  call  my  own. 
It  is  better  you  should  know  this  at  once,  though 
it  rends  my  heart  to  have  to  tell  it  you.  Of 
course  we  can  not  help  thinking  what  a  pity  it 
you  did.  But 


I  shall  never  reproach  you,  my  dear  child;  I 
would  save  you  from  all  trouble  jf  I  could.  On 
your  way  home  you  will  have  time  to  prepare 
yourself  for  the  change  you  will  find.  We  shall 
perhaps  leave  Offendene  at  once,  for  we  hope 
that  Mr.  Haynes,  who  wanted  it  before,  may  be 
ready  to  take  it  off  my  hands.  Of  course  we  can 
not  go  to  the  Rectory — there  is  not  a  corner 
there  to  spare.  We  must  get  some  hut  or  other 
to  shelter  us,  and  we  must  live  on  your  uncle 
Gascoigne's  charity  until  I  see  what  else  can  be 
done.  I  shall  not  be  able  to  pay  the  debts  to  the 
tradesmen  besides  the  servants'  wages.  Summon 
up  your  fortitude,  my  dear  child,  we  must  resign 
ourselves  to  God's  will.  But  it  is  hard  to  resign 
one's  self  to  Mr.  Lassman's  wicked  recklessness, 
which  they  say  was  the  cause  of  the  failure. 
Your  poor  sisters  can  only  cry  with  me  and  give 
me  no  help.  If  you  were  once  here,  there  might 
be  a  break  in  the  cloud.  I  always  feel  it  impos- 
sible that  you  can  have  been  meant  for  poverty. 
If  the  Langens  wish  to  remain  abroad,  perhaps 
you  can  put  yourself  under  some  one  else's  care 
for  the  journey.  But  come  as  soon  as  you  can 
to  your  afflicted  and  loving  mamma, 

FANNY  DAVILOW. 

The  first  effect  of  this  letter  on  Gwendolen  was 
half  stupefying.  The  implicit  confidence  that  her 
destiny  must  be  one  of  luxurious  ease,  where  any 
trouble  that  occurred  would  be  well  clad  and  pro- 
vided for,  had  been  stronger  in  her  own  mind  than 
in  her  mamma's,  being  fed  there  by  her  youthful 
blood  and  that  sense  of  superior  claims  which 
made  a  large  part  of  her  consciousness.  It  was 
almost  as  difficult  for  her  to  believe  suddenly 
that  her  position  had  become  one  of  poverty  and 
humiliating  dependence  as  it  would  have  been  to 


into  the  strong  current  of  her  blooming  life 
the  chill  sense  that  her  death  would  really  come. 
She  stood  motionless  for  a  few  minutes,  then 
tossed  off  her  hat  and  automatically  looked  in 
the  glass.  The  coils  of  her  smooth  light  brown 
hair  were  still  in  order  perfect  enough  for  a  ball- 
room ;  and  as  on  other  nights,  Gwendolen  might 
have  looked  lingeringly  at  herself  for  pleasure 
(surely  an  allowable  indulgence) ;  but  now  she 
took  no  conscious  note  of  her  reflected  beauty, 
and  simply  stared  right  before  her  as  if  she  had 
been  jarred  by  a  hateful  sound  and  was  waiting 
for  any  sign  of  its  cause.  By-and-by  she  threw 
herself  in  the  corner  of  the  red  velvet  sofa,  took 
up  the  letter  again  and  read  it  twice  deliberately, 
letting  it  at  last  fall  on  the  ground,  while  she 
rested  her  clasped  hands  on  her  lap  and  sat  per- 
fectly still,  shedding  no  tears.  Her  impulse  was 
to  survey  and  resist  the  situation  rather  than  to 
wail  over  it.  There  was  no  inward  exclamation 
of  "Poor  mamma!"  Her  mamma  had  never 
seemed  to  get  much  enjoyment  out  of  life,  and  if 
Gwendolen  had  been  at  this  moment  disposed  to 
feel  pity  she  would  have  bestowed  it  on  herself — 
for  was  she  not  naturally  and  rightfully  the  chief 
object  of  her  mamma's  anxiety  too  ?  But  it  was 
anger,  it  was  resistance,  that  possessed  her;  it 
was  bitter  vexation  that  she  had  lost  her  gains 
at  roulette,  whereas  if  her  luck  had  continued 
through  this  one  day  she  would  have  had  a  hand- 
some sum  to  carry  home,  or  she  might  have  gone 
on  playing  and  won  enough  to  support  them  all. 
Even  now  was  it  not  possible?  She  had  only 
four  napoleons  left  in  her  purse,  but  she  possess- 
ed some  ornaments  which  she  could  pawn:  a 
practice  so  common  in  stylish  society  at  German 
baths  that  there  was  no  need  to  be  ashamed  of 
it ;  and  even  if  she  had  not  received  her  mamma's 
letter,  she  would  probably  have  decided  to  raise 
money  on  an  Etruscan  necklace  which  she  hap- 
pened not  to  have  been  wearing  since  her  arriv- 
al ;  nay,  she  might  have  done  so  with  an  agreea- 
ble sense  that  she  was  living  with  some  intensity 
and  escaping  humdrum.  With  ten  louis  at  her 
disposal  and  a  return  of  her  former  luck,  which 
seemed  probable,  what  could  she  do  better  than 
go  on  playing  for  a  few  days  ?  If  her  friends 
at  home  disapproved  of  the  way  in  which  she 
got  the  money,  as  they  certainly  would,  still  the 
money  would  be  there.  Gwendolen's  imagina- 
tion dwelt  on  this  course,  and  created  agreeable 
consequences,  but  not  with  unbroken  confidence 
and  rising  certainty  as  it  would  have  done  if  she 
had  been  touched  with  the  gambler's  mania. 
She  had  gone  to  the  roulette  table  not  because 
of  passion,  but  in  search  of  it :  her  mind  was 
still  sanely  capable  of  picturing  balanced  prob- 
abilities, and  while  the  chance  of  winning  al- 
lured her,  the  chance  of  losing  thrust  itself  on  her 
with  alternate  strength,  and  made  a  vision  from 
which  her  pride  shrank  sensitively.  For  she  was 
resolved  not  to  tell  the  Langens  that  any  misfor- 
tune had  befallen  her  family,  or  to  make  herself 
in  any  way  indebted  to  their  compassion ;  and  if 
she  were  to  pawn  her  jewelry  to  any  observable 
extent,  they  would  interfere  by  inquiries  and  re- 
monstrances. The  course  that  held  the  least 
risk  of  intolerable  annoyance  was  to  raise  money 
on  her  necklace  early  in  the  morning,  tell  the 
Langens  that  her  mamma  desired  her  immediate 
return  without  giving  a  reason,  and  take  the  train 
for  Brussels  that  evening.  She  had  no  maid  with 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


her,  and  the  Langens  might  make  difficulties 
about  her  returning  alone,  but  her  will  was  per- 
emptory. 

Instead  of  going  to  bed  she  made  as  brilliant  a 
light  as  she  could  and  began  to  pack,  working  dili- 
gently, though  all  the  while  visited  by  the  scenes 
that  might  take  place  on  the  coming  day — now  by 
the  tiresome  explanations  and  farewells,  and  the 
whirling  journey  toward  a  changed  home,  now  by 
the  alternative  of  staying  just  another  day  and 
standing  again  at  the  roulette  table.  But  always 
in  this  latter  scene  there  was  the  presence  of  that 
Deronda,  watching  her  with  exasperating  irony, 
and — the  two  keen  experiences  were  inevitably 
revived  together— beholding  her  again  forsaken 
by  luck.  This  importunate  image  certainly  helped 
to  sway  her  resolve  on  the  side  of  immediate  de- 
parture,  and  to  urge  her  packing  to  the  point  which 
would  make  a  change  of  mind  inconvenient.  It 
had  struck  twelve  when  she  came  into  her  room, 
and  by  the  time  she  was  assuring  herself  that  she 
had  left  out  only  what  was  necessary,  the  faint 
dawn  was  stealing  through  the  white  blinds  and 
dulling  her  candles.  What  was  the  use  of  going 
to  bed  ?  Her  cold  bath  was  refreshment  enough, 
and  she  saw  that  a  slight  trace  of  fatigue  about 
the  eyes  only  made  her  look  the  more  interesting. 
Before  six  o'clock  she  was  completely  equipped  in 
her  gray  traveling-dress  even  to  her  felt  hat,  for 
she  meant  to  walk  out  as  soon  as  she  could  count 
on  seeing  other  ladies  on  their  way  to  the  springs. 
And  happening  to  be  seated  sideways  before  the 
long  strip  of  mirror  between  her  two  windows  she 
turned  to  look  at  herself,  leaning  her  elbow  on  the 
back  of  the  chair  in  an  attitude  that  might  have 
been  chosen  for  her  portrait.  It  is  possible  to  have 
a  strong  self-love  without  any  self-satisfaction, 
rather  with  a  self-discontent  which  is  the  more 
intense  because  one's  own  little  core  of  egoistic 
sensibility  is  a  supreme  care ;  but  Gwendolen 
knew  nothing  of  such  inward  strife.  She  had  a 
naive  delight  in  her  fortunate  self,  which  any  but 
the  harshest  saintliness  will  have  some  indulgence 
for  hi  a  girl  who  had  every  day  seen  a  pleasant 
reflection  of  that  self  in  her  friends'  flattery  as 
well  as  in  the  looking-glass.  And  even  in  this 
beginning  of  troubles,  while  for  lack  of  any  thing 
else  to  do  she  sat  gazing  at  her  image  in  the  grow- 
ing light,  her  face  gathered  a  complacency  grad- 
ual as  the  cheerfulness  of  the  morning.  Her 
beautiful  lips  curled  into  a  more  and  more  de- 
cided smile,  till  at  last  she  took  off  her  hat,  leaned 
forward,  and  kissed  the  cold  glass  which  had  looked 
so  warm.  How  could  she  believe  in  sorrow  ?  If 
it  attacked  her,  she  felt  the  force  to  crush  it,  to 
defy  it,  or  run  away  from  it,  as  she  had  done  al- 
ready. Any  thing  seemed  more  possible  than 
that  she  could  go  on  bearing  miseries,  great  or 
small. 

Madame  Von  Langen  never  went  out  before 
breakfast,  so  that  Gwendolen  could  safely  end  her 
early  walk  by  taking  her  way  homeward  through 
the  Obere  Strasse  in  which  was  the  needed  shop, 
sure  to  be  open  after  seven.  At  that  hour  any 
observers  whom  she  minded  would  be  either  on 
their  walks  in  the  region  of  the  springs,  or  would 
be  still  in  their  bedrooms ;  but  certainly  there  was 
one  grand  hotel,  the  Czarina,  from  which  eyes 
might  follow  her  up  to  Mr.  Wiener's  door.  This 
was  a  chance  to  be  risked :  might  she  not  be  going 
in  to  buy  something  which  had  struck  her  fancy  ? 
This  implicit  falsehood  passed  through  her  mind 


is  she  remembered  that  the  Czarina  was  Deronda's 
hotel ;  but  she  was  then  already  far  up  the  Obere 
Strasse,  and  she  walked  on  with  her  usual  floating 
movement,  every  line  in  her  figure  and  drapery 
falling  in  gentle  curves  attractive  to  all  eyes  ex- 
cept those  which  discerned  in  them  too  close  a 
resemblance  to  the  serpent,  and  objected  to  the 
revival  of  serpent  worship.  She  looked  neither  to 
the  right  hand  nor  to  the  left,  and  transacted  her 
business  in  the  shop  with  a  coolness  which  gave 
little  Mr.  Wiener  nothing  to  remark  except  her 
proud  grace  of  manner,  and  the  superior  size  and 
quality  of  the  three  central  turquoises  in  the  neck- 
lace she  offered  him.  They  had  belonged  to  a 
chain  once  her  father's ;  but  she  had  never  known 
her  father ;  and  the  necklace  was  in  all  respects  the 
ornament  she  could  most  conveniently  part  with. 
Who  supposes  that  it  is  an  impossible  contradic- 
tion to  be  superstitious  and  rationalizing  at  the 
same  time  ?  Roulette  encourages  a  romantic  su- 
perstition as  to  the  chances  of  the  game,  and  the 
most  prosaic  rationalism  as  to  human  sentiments 
which  stand  in  the  way  of  raising  needful  money. 
Gwendolen's  dominant  regret  was  that  after  all 
she  had  only  nine  louis  to  add  to  the  four  in  her 
purse :  these  Jew  pawnbrokers  were  so  unscru- 
pulous in  taking  advantage  of  Christians  unfortu- 
nate at  play !  But  she  was  the  Langens'  guest 
in  their  hired  apartment,  and  had  nothing  to  pay 
there :  thirteen  louis  would  do  more  than  take  her 
home :  even  if  she  determined  on  risking  three, 
the  remaining  ten  would  more  than  suffice,  since 
she  meant  to  travel  right  on,  day  and  night.  As 
she  turned  homeward,  nay,  entered  and  seated 
herself  in  the  salmi  to  await  her  friends  and 
breakfast,  she  still  wavered  as  to  her  immedi- 
ate departure,  or  rather  she  had  concluded  to 
tell  the  Langens  simply  that  she  had  had  a  let- 
ter from  her  mamma  desiring  her  return,  and  to 
leave  it  still  undecided  when  she  should  start. 
It  was  already  the  usual  breakfast-time,  and 
hearing  some  one  enter  as  she  was  leaning  back 
rather  tired  and  hungry  with  her  eyes  shut,  she 
rose  expecting  to  see  one  or  other  of  the  Lan- 
gens— the  words  which  might  determine  her  lin- 
gering at  least  another  day  ready-formed  to  pass 
her  lips.  But  it  was  the  servant  bringing  in  a 
small  packet  for  Miss  Harleth,  which  had  that 
moment  been  left  at  the  door.  Gwendolen  took 
it  in  her  hand  and  immediately  hurried  into  her 
own  room.  She  looked  paler  and  more  agitated 
than  when  she  had  first  read  her  mamma's  let- 
ter. Something — she  never  knew  quite  what — 
revealed  to  her  before  she  opened  the  packet 
that  it  contained  the  necklace  she  had  just  part- 
ed with.  Underneath  the  paper  it  was  wrapped 
in  a  cambric  handkerchief,  and  within  this  was  a 
scrap  of  torn-off  note-paper,  on  which  was  writ- 
ten with  a  pencil  in  clear  but  rapid  handwriting 
— ".4  stranger  who  has  found  Miss  HarletKs  neck- 
lace returns  it  to  her  with  t/ie  hope  that  she  mil  not 
again  risk  the  loss  of  it." 

Gwendolen  reddened  with  the  vexation  of 
wounded  pride.  A  large  corner  of  the  hand- 
kerchief seemed  to  have  been  recklessly  torn 
off  to  get  rid  of  a  mark ;  but  she  at  once  be- 
lieved in  the  first  image  of  "  the  stranger"  that 
presented  itself  to  her  mind.  It  was  Deronda ; 
he  must  have  seen  her  go  into  the  shop;  he 
must  have  gone  in  immediately  after,  and  re- 
deemed the  necklace.  He  had  taken  an  unpar- 
donable liberty,  and  had  dared  to  place  her  in  a 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


thoroughly  hateful  position.  What  could  she  do? 
—Not,  assuredly,  act  on  her  conviction  that  it 
was  he  who  had  sent  her  the  necklace,  and 
straightway  send  it  back  to  him :  that  would  be 
to  face  the  possibility  that  she  had  been  mis- 
taken ;  nay,  even  if  the  "  stranger"  were  he  and 
no  other,  it  would  be  something  too  gross  for  her 
to  let  him  know  that  she  had  divined  this,  and 
to  meet  him  again  with  that  recognition  in  their 
minds.  He  knew  very  well  that  he  was  entan- 
gling her  in  helpless  humiliation  ;  it  was  another 
way  of  smiling  at  her  ironically,  and  taking  the 
air  of  a  supercilious  mentor.  Gwendolen  felt 
the  bitter  tears  of  mortification  rising  and  rolling 
down  her  cheeks.  No  one  had  ever  before  dared 
to  treat  her  with  irony  and  contempt.  One  thing 
was  clear :  she  must  carry  out  her  resolution  to 
quit  this  place  at  once ;  it  was  impossible  for  her 
to  re-appear  in  the  public  salon,  still  less  stand  at 
the  gaming  table  with  the  risk  of  seeing  Deronda. 
Now  came  an  importunate  knock  at  the  door : 
breakfast  was  ready.  Gwendolen,  with  a  pas- 
sionate movement,  thrust  necklace,  cambric,  scrap 
of  paper,  and  all,  into  her  necessaire,  pressed  her 
handkerchief  against  her  face,  and  after  pausing 
a  minute  or  two  to  summon  back  her  proud  self- 
control,  went  to  join  her  friends.  Such  signs  of 
tears  and  fatigue  as  were  left  seemed  accordant 
enough  with  the  account  she  at  once  gave  of  her 
having  been  called  home,  for  some  reason  which 
she  feared  might  be  a  trouble  of  her  mamma's  ; 
and  of  her  having  sat  up  to  do  her  packing,  in- 
stead of  waiting  for  help  from  her  friend's  maid. 
There  was  much  protestation,  as  she  had  expect- 
ed, against  her  traveling  alone,  but  she  persisted 
in  refusing  any  arrangements  for  companionship. 
She  would  be  put  into  the  ladies'  compartment 
and  go  right  on.  She  could  rest  exceedingly  well 
in  the  train,  and  was  afraid  of  nothing. 

In  this  way  it  happened  that  Gwendolen  never 
re-appeared  at  the  roulette  table,  but  set  off  that 
Thursday  evening  for  Brussels,  and  on  Saturday 
morning  arrived  at  Offendene,  the  home  to  which 
she  and  her  family  were  soon  to  say  a  last  good-by. 


CHAPTER  III. 

"Let  no  flower  of  the  spring  pass  by  ns;  let  us 
crown  ourselves  with  rose-buds  before  they  be  with- 
ered."— Book  of  Wisdom. 

PITY  that  Offendene  was  not  the  home  of  Miss 
Harleth's  childhood,  or  endeared  to  her  by  family 
memories !  A  human  life,  I  think,  should  be  well 
rooted  in  some  spot  of  a  native  land,  where  it  may 
get  the  love  of  tender  kinship  for  the  face  of 
earth,  for  the  labors  men  go  forth  to,  for  the 
sounds  and  accents  that  haunt  it,  for  whatever 
will  give  that  early  home  a  familiar,  unmistak- 
able difference  amidst  the  future  widening  of 
knowledge :  a  spot  where  the  definiteness  of  ear- 
ly memories  may  be  inwrought  with  affection,  and 
kindly  acquaintance  with  all  neighbors,  even  to 
the  dogs  and  donkeys,  may  spread  not  by  senti- 
mental effort  and  reflection,  but  as  a  sweet  habit 
of  the  blood.  At  five  years  old,  mortals  are  not 
prepared  to  be  citizens  of  the  world,  to  be  stimu- 
lated by  abstract  nouns,  to  soar  above  preference 
into  impartiality ;  and  that  prejudice  in  favor  oi 
milk  with  which  we  blindly  begin,  is  a  type  oi 
the  way  body  and  BOU!  must  get  nourished  at 
least  for  a  time.  The  best  introduction  to  as- 


ronomy  is  to  think  of  the  nightly  heavens  as  a 
ittle  lot  of  stars  belonging  to  one's  own  home- 
stead. 

But  this  blessed  persistence  in  which  affection 
can  take  root  had  been  wanting  in  Gwendolen's 
ife.  Offendene  had  been  chosen  as  her  mam- 
na's  home  simply  for  its  nearness  to  Pennicote 
lectory,  and  it  was  only  the  year  before  that  Mrs. 
)avilow,  Gwendolen,  and  her  four  half-sisters  (the 
governess  and  the  maid  following  in  another  ve- 
licle)  had  been  driven  along  the  avenue  for  the 
first  time  on  a  late  October  afternoon  when  the 
rooks  were  cawing  loudly  above  them,  and  the 
yellow  elm  leaves  were  whirling. 

The  season  suited  the  aspect  of  the  old  oblong 
red  brick  house,  rather  too  anxiously  ornamented 
with  stone  at  every  line,  not  excepting  the  double 
row  of  narrow  windows  and  the  large  square  por- 
tico. The  stone  encouraged  a  greenish  lichen, 
;he  brick  a  powdery  gray,  so  that  though  the 
>uilding  was  rigidly  rectangular  there  was  no 
mrshness  in  the  physiognomy  which  it  turned  to 
,he  three  avenues  cut  east,  west,  and  south  in  the 
iundred  yards'  breadth  of  old  plantation  encir- 
cling the  immediate  grounds.  One  would  have 
d  the  house  to  have  been  lifted  on  a  knoll, 
so  as  to  look  beyond  its  own  little  domain  to  the 
ong  thatched  roofs  of  the  distant  villages,  the 
church  towers,  the  scattered  homesteads,  the  grad- 
ual rise  of  surging  woods,  and  the  green  breadths 
of  undulating  park  which  made  the  beautiful  face 
of  the  earth  in  that  part  of  Wessex.  But  though 
standing  thus  behind  a  screen  amidst  flat  pas- 
tures, it  had  on  one  side  a  glimpse  of  the  wider 
world  in  the  lofty  curves  of  the  chalk  downs, 
grand  steadfast  forms  played  over  by  the  chan- 
ging days. 

The  house  was  but  just  large  enough  to  be 
called  a  mansion,  and  was  moderately  rented, 
having  no  manor  attached  to  it,  and  being  rather 
difficult  to  let  with  its  sombre  furniture  and  faded 
upholstery.  But  inside  and  outside  it  was  what 
no  beholder  could  suppose  to  be  inhabited  by  re- 
tired trades-people :  a  certainty  which  was  worth 
many  conveniences  to  tenants  who  not  only  had 
the  taste  that  shrinks  from  new  finery,  but  also 
were  in  that  border-territory  of  rank  where  an- 
nexation is  a  burning  topic ;  and  to  take  up  her 
abode  in  a  house  which  had  once  sufficed  for 
dowager  Countesses  gave  a  perceptible  tinge  to 
Mrs.  Davilow's  satisfaction  in  having  an  estab- 
lishment of  her  own.  This,  rather  mysteriously 
to  Gwendolen,  appeared  suddenly  possible  on  the 
death  of  her  step-father,  Captain  Davilow,  who 
had  for  the  last  nine  years  joined  his  family  only 
in  a  brief  and  fitful  manner,  enough  to  reconcile 
them  to  his  long  absences ;  but  she  cared  much 
more  for  the  fact  than  for  the  explanation.  All 
her  prospects  had  become  more  agreeable  in  con- 
sequence. She  had  disliked  their  former  way 
of  life,  roving  from  one  foreign  watering-place 
or  Parisian  apartment  to  another,  always  feeling 
new  antipathies  to  new  suits  of  hired  furniture, 
and  meeting  new  people  under  conditions  which 
made  her  appear  of  little  importance;  and  the 
variation  of  having  passed  two  years  at  a  showy 
school,  where  on  all  occasions  of  display  she  had 
been  put  foremost,  had  only  deepened  her  sense 
that  so  exceptional  a  person  as  herself  could 
hardly  remain  in  ordinary  circumstances  or  in  a 
social  position  less  than  advantageous.  Any  fear 
of  this  latter  evil  was  banished  now  that  her 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


mamma  was  to  have  an  establishment ;  for  on 
the  point  of  birth  Gwendolen  was  quite  easy. 
She  had  no  notion  how  her  maternal  grandfather 
got  the  fortune  inherited  by  his  two  daughters ; 
but  he  had  been  a  West  Indian — which  seemed 
to  exclude  further  question ;  and  she  knew  that 
her  father's  family  was  so  high  as  to  take  no  no- 
tice of  her  mamma,  who  nevertheless  preserved 
with  much  pride  the  miniature  of  a  Lady  Molly 
in  that  connection.  She  would  probably  have 
known  much  more  about  her  father  but  for  a  lit- 
tle incident  which  happened  when  she  was  twelve 
years  old.  Mrs.  Davilow  had  brought  out,  as  she 
did  only  at  wide  intervals,  various  memorials  of 
her  first  husband,  and  while  showing  his  minia- 
ture to  Gwendolen  recalled,  with  a  fervor  which 
seemed  to  count  on  a  peculiar  filial  sympathy, 
the  fact  that  dear  papa  had  died  when  his  little 
daughter  was  in  long  clothes.  Gwendolen,  im- 
mediately thinking  of  the  unlovable  step-father 
whom  she  had  been  acquainted  with  the  greater 
part  of  her  life  while  her  frocks  were  short,  said, 

"Why  did  you  marry  again,  mamma?  It 
would  have  been  nicer  if  you  had  not." 

Mrs.  Davilow  colored  deeply,  a  slight  convul- 
sive movement  passed  over  her  face,  and  straight- 
way shutting  up  the  memorials,  she  said,  with  a 
violence  quite  unusual  in  her, 

"  You  have  no  feeling,  child !" 

Gwendolen,  who  was  fond  of  her  mamma,  felt 
hurt  and  ashamed,  and  had  never  since  dared  to 
ask  a  question  about  her  father. 

This  was  not  the  only  instance  in  which  she 
had  brought  on  herself  the  pain  of  some  filial 
compunction.  It  was  always  arranged,  when 
possible,  that  she  should  have  a  small  bed  in  her 
mamma's  room ;  for  Mrs.  Davilow's  motherly 
tenderness  clung  chiefly  to  her  eldest  girl,  who 
had  been  born  in  her  happier  time.  One  night 
under  an  attack  of  pain  she  found  that  the  specific 
regularly  placed  by  her  bedside  had  been  forgot- 
ten, and  begged  Gwendolen  to  get  out  of  bed  and 
reach  it  for  her.  That  healthy  young  lady,  snug 
and  warm  as  a  rosy  infant  in  her  little  couch, 
objected  to  step  out  into  the  cold,  and  lying  per- 
fectly still,  grumbled  a  refusal.  Mrs.  Davilow 
went  without  the  medicine  and  never  reproached 
her  daughter ;  but  the  next  day  Gwendolen  was 
keenly  conscious  of  what  must  be  in  her  mamma's 
mind,  and  tried  to  make  amends  by  caresses 
which  cost  her  no  effort.  Having  always  been 
the  pet  and  pride  of  the  household,  waited  on 
by  mother,  sisters,  governess,  and  maids,  as  if  she 
had  been  a  princess  in  exile,  she  naturally  found 
it  difficult  to  think  her  own  pleasure  less  impor- 
tant than  others  made  it,  and  when  it  was  posi- 
tively thwarted  felt  an  astonished  resentment, 
apt,  in  her  cruder  days,  to  vent  itself  in  one  of 
those  passionate  acts  which  look  like  a  contradic- 
tion of  habitual  tendencies.  Though  never  even 
as  a  child  thoughtlessly  cruel,  nay,  delighting  to 
rescue  drowning  insects  and  watch  their  recovery, 
there  was  a  disagreeable  silent  remembrance  of 
her  having  strangled  her  sister's  canary-bird  in  a 
final  fit  of  exasperation  at  its  shrill  singing  which 
had  again  and  again  jarringly  interrupted  her 
own.  She  had  taken  pains  to  buy  a  white  mouse 
for  her  sister  in  retribution,  and  though  inward- 
ly excusing  herself  on  the  ground  of  a  peculiar 
sensitiveness  which  was  a  mark  of  her  general 
superiority,  the  thought  of  that  infelonious  mur- 
der had  always  made  her  wince.  Gwendolen's 


nature  was  not  remorseless,  but  she  liked  to 
make  her  penances  easy ;  and  now  that  she  was 
twenty  and  more,  some  of  her  native  force  had 
turned  into  a  self-control  by  which  she  guarded 
herself  from  penitential  humiliation.  There  was 
more  show  of  fire  and  will  in  her  than  ever,  but 
there  was  more  calculation  underneath  it. 

On  this  day  of  arrival  at  Offendene,  which  not 
even  Mrs.  Davilow  had  seen  before — the  place 
having  been  taken  for  her  by  her  brother-in-law, 
Mr.  Gascoigne — when  all  had  got  down  from  the 
carriage,  and  were  standing  under  the  porch  in 
front  of  the  open  door,  so  that  they  could  have 
both  a  general  view  of  the  place  and  a  glimpse  of 
the  stone  hall  and  staircase  hung  with  sombre 
pictures,  but  enlivened  by  a  bright  wood  fire,  no 
one  spoke :  mamma,  the  four  sisters,  and  the  gov- 
erness all  looked  at  Gwendolen,  as  if  their  feel- 
ings depended  entirely  on  her  decision.  Of  the 
girls,  from  Alice  in  her  sixteenth  year  to  Isabel 
in  her  tenth,  hardly  any  thing  could  be  said  on 
a  first  view,  but  that  they  were  girlish,  and  that 
their  black  dresses  were"  getting  shabby.  Miss 
Merry  was  elderly  and  altogether  neutral  in  ex- 
pression. Mrs.  Davilow's  worn  beauty  seemed  the 
more  pathetic  for  the  look  of  entire  appeal  which 
she  cast  at  Gwendolen,  who  was  glancing  round 
at  the  house,  the  landscape,  and  the  entrance  hall 
with  an  air  of  rapid  judgment.  Imagine  a  young 
race-horse  in  the  paddock  among  untrimmed  po- 
nies and  patient  hacks. 

"  Well,  dear,  what  do  you  think  of  the  place?" 
said  Mrs.  Davilow  at  last,  in  a  gentle,  deprecatory 
tone. 

"I  think  it  is  charming,"  said  Gwendolen, 
quickly.  "  A  romantic  place — any  thing  delight- 
ful may  happen  in  it ;  it  would  be  a  good  back- 
ground for  any  thing.  No  one  need  be  ashamed 
of  living  here." 

"  There  is  certainly  nothing  common  about  it." 

"  Oh,  it  would  do  for  fallen  royalty  or  any  sort 
of  grand  poverty.  We  ought  properly  to  have 
been  living  in  splendor,  and  have  come  down  to 
this.  It  would  have  been  as  romantic  as  could 
be.  But  I  thought  my  uncle  and  aunt  Gascoigne 
would  be  here  to  meet  us,  and  my  cousin  Anna," 
added  Gwendolen,  her  tone  changed  to  sharp  sur- 
prise. 

"  We  are  early,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  and,  enter- 
ing the  hall,  she  said  to  the  housekeeper  who 
came  forward,  "  You  expect  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gas- 
coigne ?" 

"  Yes,  madam :  they  were  here  yesterday  to 
give  particular  orders  about  the  fires  and  the 
dinner.  But  as  to  fires,  I've  had  'em  in  all  the 
rooms  for  the  last  week,  and  every  thing  is  well 
aired.  I  could  wish  some  of  the  furniture  paid 
better  for  all  the  cleaning  it's  had,  but  I  think 
you'll  see  the  brasses  have  been  done  justice  to. 
I  think  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gascoigne  come,  they'll 
tell  you  nothing's  been  neglected.  They'll  be 
here  at  five,  for  certain." 

This  satisfied  Gwendolen,  who  was  not  prepared 
to  have  their  arrival  treated  with  indifference ; 
and  after  tripping  a  little  way  up  the  matted 
stone  staircase  to  take  a  survey  there,  she  tripped 
down  again,  and,  followed  by  all  the  girls,  look- 
ed into  each  of  the  rooms  opening  from  the  hall 
— the  dining-room  all  dark  oak  and  worn  red 
satin  damask,  with  a  copy  of  snarling,  worrying 
dogs  from  Snyders  over  the  sideboard,  and  a 
Christ  breaking  bread  over  the  mantel-piece ; 


10 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


the  library  with  a  general  aspect  and  smell  of 
old  brown  leather ;  and,  lastly,  the  drawing-room, 
which  was  entered  through  a  small  antechamber 
crowded  with  venerable  knickknacks. 

"  Mamma,  mamma,  pray  come  here !"  said 
Gwendolen,  Mrs.  Davilow  having  followed  slow- 
ly, in  talk  with  the  housekeeper.  "  Here  is  an 
organ.  I  will  be  Saint  Cecilia ;  some  one  shall 
paint  me  as  Saint  Cecilia.  Jocosa"  (this  was  her 
name  for  Miss  Merry),  "  let  down  my  hair.  See, 
mamma !" 

She  had  thrown  off  her  hat  and  gloves,  and 
seated  herself  before  the  organ  in  an  admirable 
pose,  looking  upward ;  while  the  submissive  and 
sad  Jocosa  took  out  the  one  comb  which  fastened 
the  coil  of  hair,  and  then  shook  out  the  mass  till 
it  fell  in  a  smooth  light  brown  stream  far  below 
its  owner's  slim  waist 

Mrs.  Davilow  smiled  and  said,  "A  charming 
picture,  my  dear !"  not  indifferent  to  the  display 
of  her  pet,  even  in  the  presence  of  a  housekeeper. 
Gwendolen  rose  and  laughed  with  delight.  All 
this  seemed  quite  to  the  purpose  on  entering  a 
new  house  which  was  so  excellent  a  background. 

"What  a  queer,  quaint,  picturesque  room!" 
she  went  on,  looking  about  her.  "  I  like  these 
old  embroidered  chairs,  and  the  garlands  on  the 
wainscot,  and  the  pictures  that  may  be  any  thing. 
That  one  with  the  ribs— nothing  but  ribs  and 
darkness — I  should  think  that  is  Spanish,  mam- 
ma." 

"Oh,  Gwendolen /"  said  the  small  Isabel,  in  a 
tone  of  astonishment,  while  she  held  open  a 
hinged  panel  of  the  wainscot  at  the  other  end 
of  the  room. 

Every  one,  Gwendolen  first,  went  to  look.  The 
opened  panel  had  disclosed  the  picture  of  an  up- 
turned dead  face,  from  which  an  obscure  figure 
seemed  to  be  fleeing  with  outstretched  arms. 
"  How  horrible  I"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  with  a  look 
of  mere  disgust;  but  Gwendolen  shuddered  si- 
lently ;  and  Isabel,  a  plain  and  altogether  incon- 
venient child  with  an  alarming  memory,  said, 

"  You  will  never  stay  in  this  room  by  yourself, 
Gwendolen." 

"  How  dare  you  open  things  which  were  meant 
to  be  shut  up,  you  perverse  little  creature  ?"  said 
Gwendolen,  in  her  angriest  tone.  Then,  snatching 
the  panel  out  of  the  hand  of  the  culprit,  she  closed 
it  hastily,  saying,  "  There  is  a  lock — where  is  the 
key?  Let  the  key  be  found,  or  else  let  one  be 
made,  and  let  nobody  open  it  again ;  or,  rather, 
let  the  key  be  brought  to  me." 

At  this  command  to  every  body  in  general 
Gwendolen  turned  with  a  face  which  was  flushed 
in  reaction  from  her  chill  shudder,  and  said,  "  Let 
UB  go  up  to  our  own  room,  mamma." 

The  housekeeper,  on  searching,  found  the  key 
in  the  drawer  of  a  cabinet  close  by  the  panel,  and 
presently  handed  it  to  Bugle,  the  lady's-maid, 
telling  her  significantly  to  give  it  to  her  Royal 
Highness. 

"  I  don't  know  who  you  mean,  Mrs.  Startin," 
said  Bugle,  who  had  been  busy  up  stairs  during 
the  scene  in  the  drawing-room,  and  was  rather 
offended  at  this  irony  in  a  new  servant. 

"  I  mean  the  young  lady  that's  to  command  us 
all — and  well  worthy  for  looks  and  figure,"  re- 
plied Mrs.  Startin,  in  propitiation.  "  She'll  know 
what  key  it  is." 

"  If  you  have  laid  out  what  we  want,  go  and 
see  to  the  others,  Bugle,"  Gwendolen  had  said, 


when  she  and  Mrs.  Davilow  entered  their  black- 
and-yellow  bedroom,  where  a  pretty  little  white 
couch  was  prepared  by  the  side  of  the  black-and- 
yellow  catafalque  known  as  "the  best  bed."  "I 
will  help  mamma." 

But  her  first  movement  was  to  go  to  the  tall 
mirror  between  the  windows,  which  reflected  her- 
self and  the  room  completely,  while  her  mamma 
sat  down  and  also  looked  at  the  reflection. 

"  That  is  a  becoming  glass,  Gwendolen ;  or  is  it 
the  black  and  gold  color  that  sets  you  off  ?"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  as  Gwendolen  stood  obliquely  with 
her  three-quarter  face  turned  toward  the  mirror, 
and  her  left  hand  brushing  back  the  stream  of 
hair. 

"  I  should  make  a  tolerable  Saint  Cecilia  with 
some  white  roses  on  my  head,"  said  Gwendolen, 
"  only,  how  about  my  nose,  mamma  ?  I  think 
saints'  noses  never  in  the  least  turn  up.  I  wish 
you  had  given  me  your  perfectly  straight  nose ; 
it  would  have  done  for  any  sort  of  character — a 
nose  of  all  work.  Mine  is  only  a  happy  nose ;  it 
would  not  do  so  well  for  tragedy." 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  any  nose  will  do  to  be  miserable 
with  in  this  world,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  with  a 
deep,  weary  sigh,  throwing  her  black  bonnet  on 
the  table,  and  resting  her  elbow  near  it. 

"Now,  mamma  !"  said  Gwendolen,  in, a  strong- 
ly remonstrant  tone,  turning  away  from  the  glass 
with  an  air  of  vexation,  "  don't  begin  to  be  dull 
here.  It  spoils  all  my  pleasure,  and  every  thing 
may  be  so  happy  now.  What  have  you  to  be 
gloomy  about  now  ?" 

"Nothing,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  seeming 
to  rouse  herself,  and  beginning  to  take  off  her 
dress.  "  It  is  always  enough  for  me  to  see  you 
happy." 

"  But  you  should  be  happy  yourself,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, still  discontentedly,  though  going  to  help 
her  mamma  with  caressing  touches.  "  Can  no- 
body be  happy  after  they  are  quite  young  ?  You 
have  made  me  feel  sometimes  as  if  nothing  were 
of  any  use.  With  the  girls  so  troublesome,  and 
Jocosa  so  dreadfully  wooden  and  ugly,  and  every 
thing  make-shift  about  us,  and  you  looking  so 
dull — what  was  the  use  of  my  being  any  thing  ? 
But  now  you  might  be  happy." 

"  So  I  shall,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  patting 
the  cheek  that  was  bending  near  her. 

"  Yes,  but  really.  Not  with  a  sort  of  make- 
believe,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  resolute  persever- 
ance. "  See  what  a  hand  and  arm  ! — much  more 
beautiful  than  mine.  Any  one  can  see  you  were 
altogether  more  beautiful." 

"  No,  no,  dear.  I  was  always  heavier.  Never 
half  so  charming  as  you  arc." 

"  Well,  but  what  is  the  use  of  my  being  charm- 
ing, if  it  is  to  end  in  my  being  dull  and  not  mind- 
ing any  thing  ?  Is  that  what  marriage  always 
comes  to  ?" 

"  No,  child,  certainly  not.  Marriage  is  the  only 
happy  state  for  a  woman,  as  I  trust  you  will  prove." 

"  I  will  not  put  up  with  it  if  it  is  not  a  happy 
state.  I  am  determined  to  be  happy — at  least 
not  to  go  on  muddling  away  my  life  as  other  peo- 
ple do,  being  and  doing  nothing  remarkable.  I 
have  made  up  my  mind  not  to  let  other  people 
interfere  with  me  as  they  have  done.  Here  is 
some  warm  water  ready  for  you,  mamma,"  Gwen- 
dolen ended,  proceeding  to  take  off  her  own  dress, 
and  then  waiting  to  have  her  hair  wound  up  by 
her  mamma. 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


There  was  silence  for  a  minute  or  two,  till 
Mrs.  Davilow  said,  while  coiling  the  daughter's 
hair,  "  I  am  sure  I  have  never  crossed  you, 
Gwendolen." 

"  You  often  want  me  to  do  what  I  don't  like." 

"  You  mean  to  give  Alice  lessons  ?" 

"  Yes.  And  I  have  done  it  because  you  ask- 
ed me.  But  I  don't  see  why  I  should  else.  It 
bores  me  to  death,  she  is  so  slow.  She  has  no 
ear  for  music,  or  language,  or  any  thing  else. 
It  would  be  much  better  for  her  to  be  ignorant, 
mamma:  it  is  her  role;  she  would  do  it  well." 

"That  is  a  hard  thing  to  say  of  your  poor  sis- 
ter, Gwendolen,  who  is  so  good  to  you,  and  waits 
on  you  hand  and  foot." 

"  I  don't  see  why  it  is  hard  to  call  things  by 
their  right  names  and  put  them  in  their  proper 
places.  The  hardship  is  for  me  to  have  to  waste 
my  time  on  her.  Now  let  me  fasten  up  your  hair, 
mamma." 

"  We  must  make  haste.  Your  uncle  and  aunt 
will  be  here  soon.  For  Heaven's  sake,  don't  be 
scornful  to  them,  my  dear  child,  or  to  your  cousin 
Anna,  whom  you  will  always  be  going  out  with. 
Do  promise  me,  Gwendolen.  You  know  you 
can't  expect  Anna  to  be  equal  to  you." 

"  I  don't  want  her  to  be  equal,"  said  Gwendolen, 
with  a  toss  of  her  head  and  a  smile,  and  the  dis- 
cussion ended  there. 

When  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gascoigne  and  their  daugh- 
ter came,  Gwendolen,  far  from  being  scornful, 
behaved  as  prettily  as  possible  to  them.  She  was 
introducing  herself  anew  to  relatives  who  had  not 
seen  her  since  the  comparatively  unfinished  age 
of  sixteen,  and  she  was  anxious — no,  not  anxious, 
but  resolved — that  they  should  admire  her. 

Mrs.  Gascoigne  bore  a  family  likeness  to  her 
sister.  But  she  was  darker  and  slighter,  her  face 
was  unworn  by  grief,  her  movements  were  less 
languid,  her  expression  more  alert  and  critical,  as 
that  of  a  rector's  wife  bound  to  exert  a  beneficent 
authority.  Their  closest  resemblance  lay  in  a 
non-resistant  disposition,  inclined  to  imitation 
and  obedience ;  but  this,  owing  to  the  difference 
in  their  circumstances,  had  led  them  to  very  dif- 
ferent issues.  The  younger  sister  had  been  indis- 
creet, or  at  least  unfortunate,  in  her  marriages ; 
the  elder  believed  herself  the  most  enviable  of 
wives,  and  her  pliancy  had  ended  in  her  some- 
times taking  shapes  of  surprising  definiteness. 
Many  of  her  opinions,  such  as  those  on  church 
government  and  the  character  of  Archbishop 
Laud,  seemed  too  decided  under  every  alteration 
to  have  been  arrived  at  otherwise  than  by  a  wife- 
ly receptiveness.  And  there  was  much  to  en- 
courage trust  in  her  husband's  authority.  He 
had  some  agreeable  virtues,  some  striking  ad- 
vantages, and  the  failings  that  were  imputed  to 
him  all  leaned  toward  the  side  of  success. 

One  of  his  advantages  was  a  fine  person,  which 
perhaps  was  even  more  impressive  at  fifty-seven 
than  it  had  been  earlier  in  life.  There  were  no 
distinctively  clerical  lines  in  the  face,  no  official 
reserve  or  ostentatious  benignity  of  expression, 
no  tricks  of  starchiness  or  of  affected  ease :  in  his 
Inverness  cape  he  could  not  have  been  identified 
except  as  a  gentleman  with  handsome  dark  feat- 
ures, a  nose  which  began  with  an  intention  to  be 
aquiline  but  suddenly  became  straight,  and  iron- 
gray  hair.  Perhaps  he  owed  this  freedom  from 
the  sort  of  professional  make-up  which  penetrates 
skin,  tones,  and  gestures,  and  defies  all  drapery,  to 


the  fact  that  he  had  once  been  Captain  Gaskin, 
having  taken  orders  and  a  diphthong  but  shortly 
before  his  engagement  to  Miss  Armyn.  If  any 
one  had  objected  that  his  preparation  for  the 
clerical  function  was  inadequate,  his  friends  might 
have  asked,  who  made  a  better  figure  in  it,  who 
preached  better  or  had  more  authority  in  his 
parish?  He  had  a  native  gift  for  administra- 
tion, being  tolerant  both  of  opinions  and  conduct, 
because  he  felt  himself  able  to  overrule  them,  and 
was  free  from  the  irritations  of  conscious  feeble- 
ness. He  smiled  pleasantly  at  the  foible  of  a 
taste  which  he  did  not  share — at  floriculture  or 
antiquarianism,  for  example,  which  were  much  in 
vogue  among  his  fellow-clergymen  in  the  diocese : 
for  himself,  he  preferred  following  the  history  of 
a  campaign,  or  divining  from  his  knowledge  of 
Nesselrode's  motives  what  would  have  been  his 
conduct  if  our  cabinet  had  taken  a  different 
course.  Mr.  Gascoigne's  tone  of  thinking  after 
some  long-quieted  fluctuations  had  become  eccle- 
siastical rather  than  theological ;  not  the  modern 
Anglican,  but  what  he  would  have  called  sound 
English,  free  from  nonsense :  such  as  became  a 
man  who  looked  at  a  national  religion  by  day- 
light, and  saw  it  in  its  relations  to  other  things. 
No  clerical  magistrate  had  greater  weight  at 
sessions,  or  less  of  mischievous  impracticableness 
in  relation  to  worldly  affairs.  Indeed,  the  worst 
imputation  thrown  out  against  him  was  worldli- 
ness :  it  could  not  be  proved  that  he  forsook  the 
less  fortunate,  but  it  was  not  to  be  denied  that 
the  friendships  he  cultivated  were  of  a  kind  like- 
ly to  be  useful  to  the  father  of  six  sons  and  two 
daughters ;  and  bitter  observers — for  in  Wessex, 
say  ten  years  ago,  there  were  persons  whose  bit- 
terness may  now  seem  incredible — remarked  that 
the  color  of  his  opinions  had  changed  in  consist- 
ency with  this  principle  of  action.  But  cheerful, 
successful  worldliness  has  a  false  air  of  being 
more  selfish  than  the  acrid,  unsuccessful  kind, 
whose  secret  history  is  summed  up  in  the  terrible 
words,  "  Sold,  but  not  paid  for." 

Gwendolen  wondered  that  she  had  not  better 
remembered  how  very  fine  a  man  her  uncle  was ; 
but  at  the  age  of  sixteen  she  was  a  less  capable 
and  more  indifferent  judge.  At  present  it  was  a 
matter  of  extreme  interest  to  her  that  she  was  to 
have  the  near  countenance  of  a  dignified  male 
relative,  and  that  the  family  life  would  cease  to 
be  entirely,  insipidly  feminine.  She  did  not  in- 
tend that  her  uncle  should  control  her,  but  she 
saw  at  once  that  it  would  be  altogether  agreeable 
to  her  that  he  should  be  proud  of  introducing 
her  as  his  niece.  And  there  was  every  sign  of 
his  being  likely  to  feel  that  pride.  He  certainly 
looked  at  her  with  admiration  as  he  said : 

"  You  have  outgrown  Anna,  my  dear,"  putting 
his  arm  tenderly  round  his  daughter,  whose  shy 
face  was  a  tiny  copy  of  his  own,  and  drawing  her 
forward.  "  She  is  not  so  old  as  you  by  a  year, 
but  her  growing  days  are  certainly  over.  I  hope 
you  will  be  excellent  companions." 

He  did  give  a  comparing  glance  at  his  daugh- 
ter, but  if  he  saw  her  inferiority,  he  might  also 
see  that  Anna's  timid  appearance  and  miniature 
figure  must  appeal  to  a  different  taste  from  that 
which  was  attracted  by  Gwendolen,  and  that  the 
girls  could  hardly  be  rivals.  Gwendolen,  at  least, 
was  aware  of  this,  and  kissed  her  cousin  with 
real  cordiality  as  well  as  grace,  saying,  "  A  com- 
panion is  just  what  I  want.  I  am  so  glad  we  are 


12 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


oome  to  live  here.  And  mamma  will  be  much 
happier  now  she  is  near  you,  aunt." 

The  aunt  trusted  indeed  that  it  would  be  so, 
and  felt  it  a  blessing  that  a  suitable  home  had 
been  vacant  in  their  uncle's  parish.  Then,  of 
course,  notice  had  to  be  taken  of  the  four  other 
girls,  whom  Gwendolen  had  always  felt  to  be  su- 
perfluous :  all  of  a  girlish  average  that  made  four 
units  utterly  unimportant,  and  yet  from  her  ear- 
liest days  an  obtrusive  influential  fact  in  her  life. 
She  was  conscious  of  having  been  much  kinder 
to  them  than  could  have  been  expected.  And  it 
was  evident  to  her  that  her  uncle  and  aunt  also 
felt  it  a  pity  there  were  so  many  girls — what  ra- 
tional person  could  feel  otherwise,  except  poor 
mamma,  who  never  would  see  how  Alice  set  up 
her  shoulders  and  lifted  her  eyebrows  till  she 
had  no  forehead  left,  how  Bertha  and  Fanny 
whispered  and  tittered  together  about  every  thing, 
or  how  Isabel  was  always  listening  and  staring 
and  forgetting  where  she  was,  and  treading  on  the 
toes  of  her  suffering  elders  ? 

"  You  have  brothers,  Anna,"  said  Gwendolen, 
while  the  sisters  were  being  noticed.  "  I  think 
you  are  enviable  there." 

"  Yes,"  said  Anna,  simply,  "  I  am  very  fond  of 
them.  But  of  course  their  education  is  a  great 
anxiety  to  papa.  He  used  to  say  they  made  me 
a  tomboy.  I  really  was  a  great  romp  with  Rex. 
I  think  you  will  like  Rex.  He  will  come  home 
before  Christmas." 

"  I  remember  I  used  to  think  you  rather  wild 
and  shy.  But  it  is  difficult  now  to  imagine  you  a 
romp,"  said  Gwendolen,  smiling. 

"  Of  course  I  am  altered  now ;  I  am  come  out, 
and  all  that.  But  in  reality  I  like  to  go  black- 
berrying  with  Edwy  and  Lotta  as  well  as  ever.  I 
am  not  very  fond  of  going  out ;  but  I  dare  say  I 
shall  like  it  better  now  you  will  be  often  with  me. 
I  am  not  at  all  clever,  and  I  never  know  what  to 
say.  It  seems  so  useless  to  say  what  every  body 
knows,  and  I  can  think  of  nothing  else,  except 
what  papa  says." 

"  I  shall  like  going  out  with  you  very  much," 
said  Gwendolen,  well  disposed  toward  this  naive 
bousin.  "  Are  you  fond  of  riding  ?" 

"Yes;  but  we  have  only  one  Shetland  pony 
among  us.  Papa  says  he  can't  afford  more,  be- 
sides the  carriage-horses  and  his  own  nag.  He 
has  so  many  expenses." 

"  I  intend  to  have  a  horse  and  ride  a  great  deal 
now,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a  tone  of  decision.  "  Is 
the  society  pleasant  in  this  neighborhood  ?" 

"Papa  says  it  is,  very.  There  are  the  clergy- 
men all  about,  you  know  ;  and  the  Quallons  and 
the  Arrowpoints,  and  Lord  Brackenshaw,  and  Sir 
Hugo  Mallinger's  place,  where  there  is  nobody — 
that's  very  nice,  because  we  make  picnics  there — 
and  two  or  three  families  at  Wancester ;  oh,  and 
old  Mrs.  Vulcany  at  Nuttingwood,  and — " 

But  Anna  was  relieved  of  this  tax  on  her  de- 
scriptive powers  by  the  announcement  of  dinner, 
and  Gwendolen's  question  was  soon  indirectly 
answered  by  her  uncle,  who  dwelt  much  on  the 
advantages  he  had  secured  for  them  in  getting  a 
place  like  Offendene.  Except  the  rent,  it  involved 
no  more  expense  than  an  ordinary  house  at  Wan 
cester  would  have  done. 

"  And  it  is  always  worth  while  to  make  a  little 
sacrifice  for  a  good  style  of  house,"  said  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne, in  his  easy,  pleasantly  confident  tone, 
which  made  the  world  in  general  seem  a  very 


manageable  place  of  residence.  "Especially 
where  there  is  only  a  lady  at  the  head.  All  the 
best  people  will  call  upon  you;  and  you  need 
give  no  expensive  dinners.  Of  course  I  have  to 
spend  a  good  deal  in  that  way ;  it  is  a  large  item. 
But  then  I  get  my  house  for  nothing.  If  I  had 
to  pay  three  hundred  a  year  for  my  house,  I  could 
not  keep  a  table.  My  boys  are  too  great  a  drain 
on  me.  You  are  better  off  than  we  are,  in  pro- 
portion; there  is  no  great  drain  on  you  now, 
after  your  house  and  carriage." 

"  I  assure  you,  Fanny,  now  the  children  are 
growing  up,  I  am  obliged  to  cut  and  contrive," 
said  Mrs.  Gascoigne.  "  I  am  not  a  good  manager 
by  nature,  but  Henry  has  taught  me.  He  is  won- 
derful for  making  the  best  of  every  thing;  he 
allows  himself  no  extras,  and  gets  his  curates  for 
nothing.  It  is  rather  hard  that  he  has  not  been 
made  a  prebendary  or  something,  as  others  have 
been,  considering  the  friends  he  has  made,  and 
the  need  there  is  for  men  of  moderate  opinions 
in  all  respects.  If  the  Church  is  to  keep  its  po- 
sition, ability  and  character  ought  to  tell." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Nancy,  you  forget  the  old  story — 
thank  Heaven,  there  are  three  hundred  as  good 
as  I !  And  ultimately  we  shall  have  no  reason  to 
complain,  I  am  pretty  sure.  There  could  hardly 
be  a  more  thorough  friend  than  Lord  Bracken- 
shaw— your  landlord,  you  know,  Fanny.  Lady 
Brackenshaw  will  call  upon  you.  And  I  have 
spoken  for  Gwendolen  to  be  a  member  of  our 
Archery  Club — the  Brackenshaw  Archery  Club— 
the  most  select  thing  any  where.  That  is,  if  she 
has  no  objection,"  added  Mr.  Gascoigne,  looking 
at  Gwendolen  with  pleasant  irony. 

"  I  should  like  it  of  all  things,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen. "There  is  nothing  I  enjoy  more  than 
taking  aim — and  hitting,"  she  ended,  with  a  pret- 
ty nod  and  smile. 

"  Our  Anna,  poor  child,  is  too  short-sighted  for 
archery.  But  I  consider  myself  a  first-rate  shot, 
and  you  shall  practice  with  me.  I  must  make 
you  an  accomplished  archer  before  our  great 
meeting  in  July.  In  fact,  as  to  neighborhood, 
you  could  hardly  be  better  placed.  There  arc 
the  Arrowpoints — they  are  some  of  our  best  peo- 
ple. Miss  Arrowpoint  is  a  delightful  girl :  she 
has  been  presented  at  court.  They  have  a  mag- 
nificent place — Quetchain  Hall — worth  seeing  in 
point  of  art ;  and  their  parties,  to  which  you  are 
sure  to  be  invited,  are  the  best  things  of  the  sort 
we  have.  The  archdeacon  is  intimate  there,  and 
they  have  always  a  good  kind  of  people  staying 
in  the  house.  Mrs.  Arrowpoint  is  peculiar,  cer- 
tainly ;  something  of  a  caricature,  in  fact ;  but 
well-meaning.  And  Miss  Arrowpoint  is  as  nice 
as  possible.  It  is  not  all  young  ladies  who  have 
mothers  as  handsome  and  graceful  as  yours  and 
Anna's." 

Mrs.  Davilow  smiled  faintly  nt  this  little  com- 
pliment, but  the  husband  and  wife  looked  affec- 
tionately at  each  other,  and  Gwendolen  thought, 
"  My  uncle  and  aunt,  at  least,  arc  happy ;  they 
are  not  dull  and  dismal."  Altogether,  she  felt 
satisfied  with  her  prospects  at  Offendene,  as  a 
great  improvement  on  any  thing  she  had  known. 
Even  the  cheap  curates,  she  incidentally  learned, 
were  almost  always  young  men  of  family,  and 
Mr.  Middleton,  the  actual  curate,  was  said  to  be 
quite  an  acquisition :  it  was  only  a'  pity  he  was 
so  soon  to  leave. 

But  there  was  one  point  which  she  was  so 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


13 


anxious  to  gain  that  she  could  not  allow  the 
evening  to  pass  without  taking  her  measures  to- 
ward securing  it.  Her  mamma,  she  knew,  in- 
tended to  submit  entirely  to  her  uncle's  judgment 
with  regard  to  expenditure ;  and  the  submission 
was  not  merely  prudential,  for  Mrs.  Davilow, 
conscious  that  she  had  always  been  seen  under  a 
cloud  as  poor  dear  Fanny,  who  had  made  a  sad 
blunder  with  her  second  marriage,  felt  a  hearty 
satisfaction  in  being  frankly  and  cordially  identi- 
fied with  her  sister's  family,  and  in  having  her 
affairs  canvassed  and  managed  with  an  authority 
which  presupposed  a  genuine  interest.  Thus  the 
question  of  a  suitable  saddle-horse,  which  had 
been  sufficiently  discussed  with  mamma,  had  to 
be  referred  to  Mr.  Gascoigne ;  and  after  Gwen- 
dolen had  played  on  the  piano,  which  had  been 
provided  from  Wancester,  had  sung  to  her  hear- 
ers' admiration,  and  had  induced  her  uncle  to 
join  her  in  a  duet — what  more  softening  influ- 
ence than  this  on  any  uncle  who  would  have  sung 
finely  if  his  time  had  not  been  too  much  taken 
up  by  graver  matters  ? — she  seized  the  oppor- 
tune moment  for  saying,  "  Mamma,  you  have  not 
spoken  to  my  uncle  about  my  riding." 

"  Gwendolen  desires  above  all  things  to  have  a 
horse  to  ride — a  pretty,  light,  lady's  horse,"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  looking  at  Mr.  Gascoigne.  "Do 
you  think  we  can  manage  it  ?" 

Mr.  Gascoigne  projected  his  lower  lip  and  lift- 
ed his  handsome  eyebrows  sarcastically  at  Gwen- 
dolen, who  had  seated  herself  with  much  grace 
on  the  elbow  of  her  mamma's  chair. 

"  We  could  lend  her  the  pony  sometimes,"  said 
Mrs.  Gascoigne,  watching  her  husband's  face,  and 
feeling  quite  ready  to  disapprove  if  he  did. 

"  That  might  be  inconveniencing  others,  aunt, 
and  would  be  no  pleasure  to  me.  I  can  not  en- 
dure ponies,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I  would  rather 
give  up  some  other  indulgence  and  have  a  horse." 
(Was  there  ever  a  young  lady  or  gentleman  not 
ready  to  give  up  an  unspecified  indulgence  for 
the  sake  of  the  favorite  one  specified  ?) 

"  She  rides  so  well.  She  has  had  lessons,  and 
the  riding-master  said  she  had  so  good  a  seat  and 
hand  she  might  be  trusted  with  any  mount,"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  who,  even  if  she  had  not  wished  her 
darling  to  have  the  horse,  would  not  have  dared 
to  be  lukewarm  in  trying  to  get  it  for  her. 

"  There  is  the  price  of  the  horse — a  good  sixty 
with  the  best  chance — and  then  his  keep,"  'said 
Mr.  Gascoigne,  in  a  tone  which,  though  demurring, 
betrayed  the  inward  presence  of  something  that 
favored  the  demand.  "  There  are  the  carriage- 
horses — already  a  heavy  item.  And  remember 
what  you  ladies  cost  in  toilet  now." 

"  I  really  wear  nothing  but  two  black  dresses," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow,  hastily.  "  And  the  younger 
girls,  of  course,  require  no  toilet  at  present.  Be- 
sides, Gwendolen  will  save  me  so  much  by  giving 
her  sisters  lessons."  Here  Mrs.  Davilow's  deli- 
cate cheek  showed  a  rapid  blush.  "  If  it  were 
not  for  that,  I  must  really  have  a  more  expensive 
governess,  and  masters  besides." 

Gwendolen  felt  some  anger  with  her  mamma, 
but  carefully  concealed  it. 

"  That  is  good — that  is  decidedly  good,"  said 
Mr.  Gascoigne,  heartily,  looking  at  his  wife.  And 
Gwendolen,  who,  it  must  be  owned,  was  a  deep 
young  lady,  suddenly  moved  away  to  the  other 
end  of  the  long  drawing-room,  and  busied  herself 
with  arranging  pieces  of  music. 


"The  dear  child  has  had  no  indulgences,  no 
pleasures,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  in  a  pleading  un- 
der-tone.  "  I  feel  the  expense  is  rather  impru- 
dent in  this  first  year  of  our  settling.  But  she 
really  needs  the  exercise — she  needs  cheering. 
And  if  you  were  to  see  her  on  horseback,  it  is 


It  is  what  we  could  not  afford  for  Anna," 
said  Mrs.  Gascoigne.  "  But  she,  dear  child,  would 
ride  Lotta's  donkey,  and  think  it  good  enough." 
(Anna  was  absorbed  in  a  game  with  Isabel,  who 
had  hunted  out  an  old  backgammon  board,  and 
had  begged  to  sit  up  an  extra  hour.) 

"  Certainly,  a  fine  woman  never  looks  better 
than  on  horseback,"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne.  "  And 
Gwendolen  has  the  figure  for  it.  I  don't  say  the 
thing  should  not  be  considered." 

"  We  might  try  it  for  a  tune,  at  all  events.  It 
can  be  given  up  if  necessary,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow. 

"  Well,  I,will  consult  Lord  Brackenshaw's  head 
groom.  He  is  myjidus  Achates  in  the  horsey  way." 

"  Thanks,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  much  relieved. 
"  You  are  very  kind." 

"  That  he  always  is,"  said  Mrs.  Gascoigne.  And 
later  that  night,  when  she  and  her  husband  were 
in  private,  she  said  : 

"I  thought  you  were  almost  too  indulgent 
about  the  horse  for  Gwendolen.  She  ought  not 
to  claim  so  much  more  than  your  own  daughter 
would  think  of.  Especially  before  we  see  how 
Fanny  manages  on  her  income.  And  you  really 
have  enough  to  do  without  taking  all  this  trouble 
on  yourself." 

1  My  dear  Nancy,  one  must  look  at  things  from 
every  point  of  view.  This  girl  is  really  worth 
some  expense:  you  don't  often  see  her  equal. 
She  ought  to  make  a  first-rate  marriage,  and  I 
should  not  be  doing  my  duty  if  I  spared  my  trou- 
ble in  helping  her  forward.  You  know  yourself 
she  has  been  under  a  disadvantage  with  such  a 
father-in-law,  and  a  second  family,  keeping  her 
always  in  the  shade.  I  feel  for  the  girl.  And  I 
should  like  your  sister  and  her  family  now  to 
have  the  benefit  of  your  having  married  rather  a 
better  specimen  of  your  kind  than  she  did." 

"  Rather  better !  I  should  think  so.  However, 
t  is  for  me  to  be  grateful  that  you  will  take  so 
much  on  your  shoulders  for  the  sake  of  my  sister 
and  her  children.  I  am  sure  I  would  not  grudge 
any  thing  to  poor  Fanny.  But  there  is  one  thing 
I  have  been  thinking  of,  though  you  have  never 
mentioned  it." 
What  is  that?" 

The  boys.  I  hope  they  will  not  be  falling  in 
love  with  Gwendolen." 

Don't  presuppose  any  thing  of  the  kind,  my 
dear,  and  there  will  be  no  danger.  Rex  will  nev- 
er be  at  home  for  long  together,  and  Warham  is 
going  to  India.  It  is  the  wiser  plan  to  take  it 
for  granted  that  cousins  will  not  fall  in  love.  If 
you  begin  with  precautions,  the  affair  will  come 
in  spite  of  them.  One  must  not  undertake  to 
act  for  Providence  in  these  matters,  which  can 
no  more  be  held  under  the  hand  than  a  brood 
of  chickens.  The  boys  will  have  nothing,  and 
Gwendolen  will  have  nothing.  They  can't  marry. 
At  the  worst  there  would  only  be  a  little  crying, y 
and  you  can't  save  boys  and  girls  from  that." 

Mrs.  Gascoigne's  mind  was  satisfied :  if  any 
thing  did  happen,  there  was  the  comfort  of  feei- 
ng that  her  husband  would  know  what  was  to 
be  done,  and  would  have  the  energy  to  do  it. 


14 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"  Gof  gibus,  ....'Je  te  dis  qne  le  marlage  est  une 
chose  sainte  et  sacree,  et  que  c'est  faire  eii  Loiinetea 
gens,  que  de  debater  par  la,' 

"Madelon,  «Mon  Dieu!  que  si  tout  le  monde  vous 
ressemblait,  un  roman  serait  bientot  fini!  La  belle 
chose  que  ce  serait,  si  d'abord  Cyrus  6pousait  Man- 
dane,  et  qn'Aronce  de  plain-pied  f  lit  marie  i  Clelle  ! 
.  .  .  .  Laissez-nous  faire  a  loisir  le  tissu  de  notre  roman, 
et  n'en  pressezpas  tant  la  conclusion.'" 

:  Lea  Precieusea  Ridicules. 


IT  would  be  a  little  hard  to  blame  the  Rector  of 
Pennicote  that  in  the  course  of  looking  at  things 
from  every  point  of  view,  he  looked  at  Gwendo- 
len as  a  girl  likely  to  make  a  brilliant  marriage. 
Why  should  he  be  expected  to  differ  from  his 
contemporaries  in  this  matter,  and  wish  his  niece 
a  worse  end  of  her  charming  maidenhood  than 
they  would  approve  as  the  best  possible  ?  It  is 
rather  to  be  Bet  down  to  his  credit  that  his  feel- 
ings on  the  subject  were  entirely  good-natured. 
And  in  considering  the  relation  of  means  to  ends, 
it  would  have  been  mere  folly  to  have  been  guided 
by  the  exceptional  and  idyllic  —  to  have  recom- 
mended that  Gwendolen  should  wear  a  gown  as 
shabby  as  Griselda's  in  order  that  a  Marquis 
might  fall  in  love  with  her,  or  to  have  insisted 
that  since  a  fair  maiden  was  to  be  sought,  she 
should  keep  herself  out  of  the  way.  Mr.  Gas- 
ooigne's  calculations  were  of  the  kind  called  ra- 
tional, and  he  did  not  even  think  of  getting  a  too 
frisky  horse  hi  order  that  Gwendolen  might  be 
threatened  with  an  accident  and  be  rescued  by 
a  man  of  property.  He  wished  his  niece  well, 
and  he  meant  her  to  be  seen  to  advantage  in  the 
best  society  of  the  neighborhood. 

Her  uncle's  intention  fell  in  perfectly  with 
Gwendolen's  own  wishes.  But  let  no  one  sup- 
pose that  she  also  contemplated  a  brilliant  mar- 
riage as  the  direct  end  of  her  witching  the  world 
with  her  grace  on  horseback,  or  with  any  other 
accomplishment.  That  she  was  to  be  married 
some  time  or  other  she  would  have  felt  obliged 
to  admit  ;  and  that  her  marriage  would  not  be  of 
a  middling  kind,  such  as  most  girls  were  content- 
ed with,  she  felt  quietly,  unargumentatively  sure. 
But  her  thoughts  never  dwelt  on  marriage  as  the 
fulfillment  of  her  ambition  ;  the  dramas  in  which 
she  imagined  herself  a  heroine  were  not  wrought 
up  to  that  close.  To  be  very  much  sued  or  hope- 
lessly sighed  for  as  a  bride  was  indeed  an  indis- 
pensable and  agreeable  guarantee  of  womanly 
power;  but  to  become  a  wife  and  wear  all  the 
domestic  fetters  of  that  condition  was,  on  the 
whole,  a  vexatious  necessity.  Her  observation 
of  matrimony  had  inclined  her  to  think  it  rather 
a  dreary  state,  in  which  a  woman  could  not  do 
what  she  liked,  had  more  children  than  were  de- 
sirable, was  consequently  dull,  and  became  irrev- 
ocably immersed  in  humdrum.  Of  course  mar- 
riage was  social  promotion  ;  she  could  not  look 
forward  to  a  single  life  ;  but  promotions  have 
sometimes  to  be  taken  with  bitter  herbs  —  a  peer- 
age will  not  quite  do  instead  of  leadership  to  the 
man  who  meant  to  lead  ;  and  this  delicate-limbed 
sylph  of  twenty  meant  to  lead.  For  such  pas- 
sions dwell  in  feminine  breasts  also.  In  Gwen- 
dolen's, however,  they  dwelt  among  strictly  femi- 
nine furniture,  and  had  no  disturbing  reference  to 
the  advancement  of  learning  or  the  balance  of  the 
constitution  ;  her  knowledge  being  such  as  with 
no  sort  of  standing-room  or  length  of  lever  could 
have  been  expected  to  move  the  world.  She  meant 


to  do  what  was  pleasant  to  herself  in  a  striking 
manner ;  or  rather,  whatever  she  could  do  so  as 
to  strike  others  with  admiration  and  get  in  that 
reflected  way  a  more  ardent  sense  of  living, 
seemed  pleasant  to  her  fancy. 

"  Gwendolen  will  not  rest  without  having  the 
world  at  her  feet,"  said  Miss  Merry,  the  meek 
governess — hyperbolical  words  which  have  long 
come  to  carry  the  most  moderate  meanings  ;  for 

ho  has  not  heard  of  private  persons  having  the 
world  at  their  feet  in  the  shape  of  some  half  doz- 
en items  of  flattering  regard  generally  known  in  a 
genteel  suburb  ?  And  words  could  hardly  be  too 
wide  or  vague  to  indicate  the  prospect  that  made 
a.  hazy  largeness  about  poor  Gwendolen  on  the 
heights  of  her  young  self -exultation.  Other  peo- 
ple allowed  themselves  to  be  made  slaves  of,  and 
to  have  their  lives  blown  hither  and  thither,  like 
empty  ships  in  which  no  will  was  present ;  it  was 
not  to  be  so  with  her;  she  would  no  longer  be 
sacrificed  to  creatures  worth  less  than  herself,  but 
would  make  the  very  best  of  the  chances  that  life 
offered  her,  and  conquer  circumstances  by  her  ex- 
ceptional cleverness.  Certainly,  to  be  settled  at 
Offendene,  with  the  notice  of  Lady  Brackenshaw, 
the  archery  club,  and  invitations  to  dine  with  the 
Arrowpoints,  as  the  highest  lights  in  her  scenery, 
was  not  a  position  that  seemed  to  offer  remark- 

,ble  chances ;  but  Gwendolen's  confidence  lay 
chiefly  in  herself.  She  felt  well  equipped  for  the 
mastery  of  life.  With  regard  to  much  in  her  lot 
hitherto  she  held  herself  rather  hardly  dealt  with, 
but  as  to  her  "education,"  she  would  have  ad- 
mitted that  it  had  left  her  under  no  disadvantages. 
In  the  school-room  her  quick  mind  had  taken 
readily  that  strong  starch  of  unexplained  rules 
and  disconnected  facts  which  saves  ignorance  from 
any  painful  sense  of  limpness ;  and  what  remained 
of  all  things  knowable,  she  was  conscious  of  being 
sufficiently  acquainted  with  through  novels,  plays, 
and  poems.  About  her  French  and  music,  the 
two  justifying  accomplishments  of  a  young  lady, 
she  felt  no  ground  for  uneasiness  ;  and  when  to 
all  these  qualifications,  negative  and  positive,  we 
add  the  spontaneous  sense  of  capability  some 
happy  persons  are  born  with,  so  that  any  subject 
they  turn  attention  to  impresses  them  with  their 
own  power  of  forming  a  correct  judgment  on  it, 
who  can  wonder  if  Gwendolen  felt  ready  to  man- 
age her  own  destiny  ? 

There  were  many  subjects  in  the  world — per- 
haps the  majority — in  which  she  felt  no  interest, 
because  they  were  stupid ;  for  subjects  are  apt  to 
appear  stupid  to  the  young  as  light  seems  dim  to 
the  old ;  but  she  would  not  have  felt  at  all  help- 
less in  relation  to  them  if  they  had  turned  up  in 
conversation.  It  must  be  remembered  that  no 
one  had  disputed  her  power  or  her  general  superi- 
ority. As  on  the  arrival  at  Offendene,  so  always 
the  first  thought  of  these  about  her  had  been, 
what  will  Gwendolen  think  ? — if  the  footman  trod 
heavily  in  creaking  boots,  or  if  the  laundress's 
work  was  unsatisfactory,  the  maid  said,  "This 
will  never  do  for  Miss  Harleth;"  if  the  wood 
smoked  in  the  bedroom  fire-place,  Mrs.  Davilow, 
whose  own  weak  eyes  suffered  much  from  this 
inconvenience,  spoke  apologetically  of  it  to  Gwen- 
dolen. If,  when  they  were  under  the  stress  of 
traveling,  she  did  not  appear  at  the  breakfast 
table  till  every  one  else  had  finished,  the  only 
question  was,  how  Gwendolen's  coffee  and  toast 
]  should  still  be  of  the  hottest  and  crispcst ;  and 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


15 


when  she  appeared  with  her  freshly  brushed 
light  brown  hair  streaming  backward,  and  await- 
ing her  mamma's  hand  to  coil  it  up,  her  long 
brown  eyes  glancing  bright  as  a  wave-washed 
onyx  from  under  their  long  lashes,  it  was  always 
she  herself  who  had  to  be  tolerant — to  beg  that 
Alice,  who  sat  waiting  on  her,  would  not  stick  up 
her  shoulders  in  that  frightful  manner,  and  that 
Isabel,  instead  of  pushing  up  to  her  and  asking 
questions,  would  go  away  to  Miss  Merry. 

Always  she  was  the  princess  in  exile,  who  in 
time  of  famine  was  to  have  her  breakfast-roll 
made  of  the  finest  bolted  flour  from  the  seven 
thin  ears  of  wheat,  and  in  a  general  decampment 
was  to  have  her  silver  fork  kept  out  of  the  bag- 
gage. How  was  this  to  be  accounted  for  ?  The 
answer  may  seem  to  lie  quite  on  the  surface: 
in  her  beauty,  a  certain  unusualness  about  her, 
a  decision  of  will,  which  made  itself  felt  in  her 
graceful  movements  and  clear  unhesitating  tones, 
so  that  if  she  came  into  the  room  on  a  rainy  day 
when  -every  body  else  was  flaccid  and  the  use  of 
things  in  general  was  not  apparent  to  them,  there 
seemed  to  be  a  sudden,  sufficient  reason  for  keep- 
ing up  the  forms  of  life ;  and  even  the  waiters  at 
hotels  showed  the  more  alacrity  in  doing  away 
with  crumbs  and  creases  and  dregs  with  strug- 
gling flies  in  them.  This  potent  charm,  added  to 
the  fact  that  she  was  the  eldest  daughter,  toward 
whom  her  mamma  had  always  been  in  an  apolo- 
getic state  of  mind  for  the  evils  brought  on  her 
by  a  step-father,  may  seem  so  full  a  reason  for 
Gwendolen's  domestic  empire,  that  to  look  for 
any  other  would  be  to  ask  the  reason  of  daylight 
when  the  sun  is  shining.  But  beware  of  arriving 
at  conclusions  without  comparison.  I  remember 
having  seen  the  same  assiduous,  apologetic  atten- 
tion awarded  to  persons  who  were  not  at  all  beau- 
tiful or  unusual,  whose  firmness  showed  itself  in 
no  very  graceful  or  euphonious  way,  and  who  were 
not  eldest  daughters  with  a  tender,  timid  mother, 
compunctious  at  having  subjected  them  to  incon- 
veniences. Some  of  them  were  a  very  common 
sort  of  men.  And  the  only  point  of  resemblance 
among  them  all  was  a  strong  determination  to 
have  what  was  pleasant,  with  a  total  fearlessness 
in  making  themselves  disagreeable  or  dangerous 
when  they  did  not  get  it.  Who  is  so  much  ca- 
joled and  served  with  trembling  by  the  weak 
females  of  a  household  as  the  unscrupulous  male 
— capable,  if  he  has  not  free  way  at  home,  of  go- 
ing and  doing  worse  elsewhere?  Hence  I  am 
forced  to  doubt  whether,  even  without  her  potent 
charm  and  peculiar  filial  position,  Gwendolen 
might  not  still  have  played  the  queen  in  exile  if 
only  she  had  kept  her  inborn  energy  of  egoistic 
desire  and  her  power  of  inspiring  fear  as  to  what 
she  might  say  or  do.  However,  she  had  the 
charm,  and  those  who  feared  her  were  also  fond 

both  heightened  by  what  may  be  called  the  iri- 
descence of  her  character — the  play  of  various, 
nay,  contrary,  tendencies.  For  Macbeth's  rheto- 
ric about  the  impossibility  of  being  many  oppo- 
site things  in  the  same  moment  referred  to  the 
clumsy  necessities  of  action,  and  not  to  the  sub- 
tler possibilities  of  feeling.  We  can  not  speak 
a  loyal  word  and  be  meanly  silent ;  we  can  not 
kill  and  not  kill,  in  the  same  moment ;  but  a  mo- 
ment is  room  wide  enough  for  the  loyal  and  mean 
desire,  for  the  outlash  of  a  murderous  thought 
and  the  sharp  backward  stroke  of  repentance. 


CHAPTER  V. 


"Her  wit 

Values  itself  so  highly,  that  to  her 
All  matter  else  seems  weak." 

—Much  Ado  about  Nothing. 

GWENDOLEN'S  reception  in  the  neighborhood 
fulfilled  her  uncle's  expectations.  From  Brack- 
enshaw  Castle  to  the  Firs  at  Wancester,  where 
Mr.  Quallon,  the  banker,  kept  a  generous  house, 
she  was  welcomed  with  manifest  admiration,  and 
even  those  ladies  who  did  not  quite  like  her  felt 
a  comfort  in  having  a  new,  striking  girl  to  in- 
vite; for  hostesses  who  entertain  much  must 
make  up  their  parties  as  ministers  make  up  their 
cabinets,  on  grounds  other  than  personal  liking. 
Then,  in  order  to  have  Gwendolen  as  a  guest,  it 
was  not  necessary  to  ask  any  one  who  was  dis- 
agreeable, for  Mrs.  Davilow  always  made  a  quiet, 
picturesque  figure  as  a  chaperon,  and  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne  was  every  where  in  request  for  his  own 
sake. 

Among  the  houses  where  Gwendolen  was  not 
quite  liked,  and  yet  invited,  was  Quetcham  Hall. 
One  of  her  first  invitations  was  to  a  large  dinner 
party  there,  which  made  a  sort  of  general  intro- 
duction for  her  to  the  society  of  the  neighbor- 
hood ;  for  hi  a  select  party  of  thirty,  and  of  well- 
composed  proportions  as  to  age,  few  visitable 
families  could  be  entirely  left  out.  No  youthful 
figure  there  was  comparable  to  Gwendolen's  as 
she  passed  through  the  long  suit  of  rooms  adorn- 
ed with  light  and  flowers,  and,  visible  at  first  as 
a  slim  figure  floating  along  in  white  drapery,  ap- 
proached through  one  wide  doorway  after  an- 
other in  fuller  illumination  and  definiteness.  She 
had  never  had  that  sort  of  promenade  before, 
and  she  felt  exultingly  that  it  befitted  her:  any 
one  looking  at  her  for  the  first  tune  might  have 
supposed  that  long  galleries  and  lackeys  had 
always  been  a  matter  of  course  in  her  life ;  while 
her  cousin  Anna,  who  was  really  more  familiar 
with  these  things,  felt  almost  as  much  embar- 
rassed as  a  rabbit  suddenly  deposited  in  that  well- 
lit  space. 

"  Who  is  that  with  Gascoigne !"  said  the  arch- 
deacon, neglecting  a  discussion  of  military  ma- 
noeuvres, on  which,  as  a  clergyman,  he  was  natu- 
rally appealed  to.  And  his  son,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  room — a  hopeful  young  scholar,  who  had 
already  suggested  some  "not  less  elegant  than 
ingenious"  emendations  of  Greek  texts  —  said, 
nearly  at  the  same  time,  "  By  George !  who  is  that 
girl  with  the  awfully  well-set  head  and  jolly 
figure  ?" 

But  to  a  mind  of  general  benevolence,  wishing 
every  body  to  look  well,  it  was  rather  exaspera- 
ting to  see  how  Gwendolen  eclipsed  others :  how 
even  the  handsome  Miss  Lawe,  explained  to  be 
the  daughter  of  Lady  Lawe,  looked  suddenly 
broad,  heavy,  and  inanimate ;  and  how  Miss 
Arrowpoint,  unfortunately  also  dressed  in  white, 
immediately  resembled  a  carte  de  vistte  in  which 
one  would  fancy  the  skirt  alone  to  have  been 
charged  for.  Since  Miss  Arrowpoint  was  gener- 
ally liked  for  the  amiable  unpretending  way  in 
which  she  wore  her  fortunes,  and  made  a  soften- 
ing screen  for  the  oddities  of  her  mother,  there 
seemed  to  be  some  unfitness  in  Gwendolen's 
looking  so  much  more  like  a  person  of  social  im- 
portance. 

"  She  is  not  really  so  handsome,  if  you  come 
to  examine  her  features,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint, 


1C 


DAXEEL  DEROXDA. 


later  in  the  evening,  confidentially  to  Mrs.  Vul- 
cany.  "  It  is  a  certain  style  she  has,  which  pro- 
duces a  great  effect  at  first,  but  afterward  she  is 
less  agreeable." 

In  fact,  Gwendolen,  not  intending  it,  but  in- 
tending the  contrary,  had  offended  her  hostess, 
who,  though  not  a  splenetic  or  vindictive  woman, 
had  her  susceptibilities.  Several  conditions  had 
met  in  the  Lady  of  Quetcham  which  to  the  rea- 
soners  in  that  neighborhood  seemed  to  have  an 
essential  connection  with  each  other.  It  was 
occasionally  recalled  that  she  had  been  the  heir- 
ess of  a  fortune  gained  by  some  moist  or  dry  busi- 
ness in  the  city,  in  order  fully  to  account  for  her 
having  a  squat  figure,  a  harsh,  parrot-like  voice, 
and  a  systematically  high  head-dress ;  and  since 
these  points  made  her  externally  rather  ridicu- 
lous, it  appeared  to  many  only  natural  that  she 
should  have  what  are  called  literary  tendencies. 
A  little  comparison  would  have  shown  that  all 
these  points  are  to  be  found  apart :  daughters  of 
aldermen  being  often  well-grown  and  well-feat- 
ured; pretty  women  having  sometimes  harsh  or 
husky  voices ;  and  the  production  of  feeble  litera- 
ture being  found  compatible  with  the  most  diverse 
forms  of  physique,  masculine  as  well  as  feminine. 

Gwendolen,  who  had  a  keen  sense  of  absurdity 
in  others,  but  was  kindly  disposed  toward  any 
one  who  could  make  life  agreeable  to  her,  meant 
to  win  Mrs.  Arrowpoint  by  giving  her  an  interest 
and  attention  beyond  what  others  were  probably 
inclined  to  show.  But  self-confidence  is  apt  to 
address  itself  to  an  imaginary  dullness  in  others, 
as  people  who  are  well  off  speak  in  a  cajoling 
tone  to  the  poor,  and  those  who  are  in  the  prime 
of  life  raise  their  voice  and  talk  artificially  to 
seniors,  hastily  conceiving  them  to  be  deaf  and 
rather  imbecile.  Gwendolen,  with  all  her  clever- 
ness and  purpose  to  be  agreeable,  could  not  es- 
cape that  form  of  stupidity :  it  followed  in  her 
mind,  unreflectingly,  that  because  Mrs.  Arrow- 
point  was  ridiculous  she  was  also  likely  to  be 
wanting  in  penetration,  and  she  went  through  her 
little  scenes  without  suspicion  that  the  various 
shades  of  her  behavior  were  all  noted. 

"  You  are  fond  of  books  as  well  as  of  music, 
riding,  and  archery,  I  hear,"  Mrs.  Arrowpoint 
said,  going  to  her  for  a  tete-d-tete  in  the  drawing- 
room  after  dinner ;  "  Catherine  will  be  very  glad 
to  have  so  sympathetic  a  neighbor."  This  little 
speech  might  have  seemed  the  most  graceful  po- 
liteness, spoken  in  a  low  melodious  tone ;  but 
with  a  twang  fatally  loud,  it  gave  Gwendolen  a 
sense  of  exercising  patronage  when  she  answered, 
gracefully: 

"  It  is  I  who  am  fortunate.  Miss  Arrowpoint 
will  teach  me  what  good  music  is :  I  shall  be  en- 
tirely a  learner.  I  hear  that  she  is  a  thorough 
musician." 

"  Catherine  has  certainly  had  every  advantage. 
We  have  a  first-rate  musician  in  the  house  now — 
Ilerr  Klesmer;  perhaps  you  know  all  his  com- 
positions. You  must  allow  me  to  introduce  him 
to  you.  You  sing,  I  believe.  Catherine  plays 
three  instruments,  but  she  does  not  sing.  I  hope 
you  will  let  us  hear  you.  I  understand  you  are 
an  accomplished  singer." 

"  Oh  no !— '  die  Kraft  ist  schwach,  allein  die 
Lust  ist  gross,'  as  Mephistophelcs  says." 

"Ah,  you  are  a  student  of  Goethe.  Young 
ladies  are  so  advanced  now.  I  suppose  you  have 
read  everything?" 


"  No,  really.  I  shall  be  so  glad  if  you  will  tell 
me  what  to  read.  I  have  been  looking  into  all 
the  books  in  the  library  at  Offendene,  but  there  is 
nothing  readable.  The  leaves  all  stick  together 
and  smell  musty.  I  wish  I  could  write  books  to 
amuse  myself,  as  you  can!  How  delightful  it 
must  be  to  write  books  after  one's  own  taste  in- 
stead of  reading  other  people's!  Home-made 
books  must  be  so  nice." 

For  an  instant  Mrs.  Arrowpoint's  glance  was  a 
little  sharper,  but  the  perilous  resemblance  to  sa- 
tire in  the  last  sentence  took  the  hue  of  girlish 
simplicity  when  Gwendolen  added, 

"  I  would  give  any  thing  to  write  a  book !" 

"  And  why  should  you  not  ?"  said  Mrs.  Arrow- 
point,  encouragingly.  "  You  have  but  to  begin  as 
I  did.  Pen,  ink,  and  paper  are  at  every  body's 
command.  But  I  will  send  you  all  I  have  written 
with  pleasure." 

"  Thanks.  I  shall  be  so  glad  to  read  your  writ- 
ings. Being  acquainted  with  authors  must  give  a 
peculiar  understanding  of  their  books :  one  would 
be  able  to  tell  then  which  parts  were  funny  and 
which  serious.  I  am  sure  I  often  laugh  in  the 
wrong  place."  Here  Gwendolen  herself  became 
aware  of  danger,  and  added,  quickly,  "  In  Shaks- 
peare,  you  know,  and  other  great  writers  that  we 
can  never  see.  But  I  always  want  to  know  more 
than  there  is  in  the  books." 

"  If  you  are  interested  in  any  of  my  subjects  I 
can  lend  you  many  extra  sheets  in  manuscript," 
said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint — while  Gwendolen  felt  her- 
self painfully  in  the  position  of  the  young  lady 
who  professed  to  like  potted  sprats.  "  These  are 
things  I  dare  say  I  shall  publish  eventually :  sev- 
eral friends  have  urged  me  to  do  so,  and  one 
doesn't  like  to  be  obstinate.  My  Tasso,  for  ex- 
ample— I  could  have  made  it  twice  the  size." 

"  I  dote  on  Tasso,"  said  Gwendolen. 

"  Well,  you  shall  have  all  my  papers,  if  you 
like.  So  many,  you  know,  have  written  about 
Tasso ;  but  they  are  all  wrong.  As  to  the  par- 
ticular nature  of  his  madness,  and  his  feelings  for 
Leonora,  and  the  real  cause  of  his  imprisonment, 
and  the  character  of  Leonora,  who,  in  my  opin- 
ion, was  a  cold-hearted  woman,  else  she  would 
have  married  him  in  spite  of  her  brother — they 
are  all  wrong.  I  differ  from  every  body." 

"  How  very  interesting !"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I 
like  to  differ  from  every  body.  I  think  it  is  so 
stupid  to  agree.  That  is  the  worst  of  writing 
your  opinions ;  you  make  people  agree  with 
you." 

This  speech  renewed  a  slight  suspicion  in  Mrs. 
Arrowpoint,  and  again  her  glance  became  for  a 
moment  examining.  But  Gwendolen  looked  very 
innocent,  and  continued  with  a  docile  air : 

"  I  know  nothing  of  Tasso  except  the  Gentsa- 
lemme  Liberata,  which  we  read  and  learned  by 
heart  at  school." 

"  Ah,  his  life  is  more  interesting  than  his  po- 
etry. I  have  constructed  the  early  part  of  his 
life  as  a  sort  of  romance.  When  one  thinks  of 
his  father  Bernardo,  and  so  on,  there  is  so  much 
that  must  be  true." 

"  Imagination  is  often  truer  than  fact,"  said 
Gwendolen,  decisively,  though  she  could  no  more 
have  explained  these  glib  words  than  if  they 
had  been  Coptic  or  Etruscan.  "  I  shall  be  so 
glad  to  learn  all  about  Tasso — and  his  madness 
especially.  I  suppose  poots  are  always  a  little 
mad." 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


17 


"  To  be  sure — '  the  poet's  eye  in  a  fine  frenzy 
rolling ;'  and  somebody  says  of  Marlowe — 

"  'For  that  fine  madness  still  he  did  maintain, 
Which  always  should  possess  the  poet's  brain.'" 

"  But  it  was  not  always  found  out,  was  it  ?" 
said  Gwendolen,  innocently.  "I  suppose  some 
of  them  rolled  their  eyes  in  private.  Mad  peo- 
ple are  often  very  cunning." 

Again  a  shade  flitted  over  Mrs.  Arrowpoint's 
face ;  but  the  entrance  of  the  gentlemen  prevented 


any 


immediate  mischief  between  her  and  this  too 


quick  young  lady,  who  had  overacted  her  nawete. 

"  Ah,  here  comes  Herr  Klesmer,"  said  Mrs.  Ar- 
rowpoint,  rising ;  and  presently  bringing  him  to 
Gwendolen,  she  left  them  to  a  dialogue  which  was 
agreeable  on  both  sides,  Herr  Klesmer  being  a 
felicitous  combination  of  the  German,  the  Sclave, 
and  the  Semite,  with  grand  features,  brown  hair 
floating  in  artistic  fashion,  and  brown  eyes  in 
spectacles.  His  English  had  little  foreignness 
except  its  fluency;  and  his  alarming  cleverness 
was  made  less  formidable  just  then  by  a  certain 
softening  air  of  silliness  which  will  sometimes 
befall  even  Genius  in  the  desire  of  being  agree- 
able to  Beauty. 

Music  was  soon  begun.  Miss  Arrowpoint  and 
Herr  Klesmer  played  a  four-handed  piece  on  two 
pianos  which  convinced  the  company  in  general 
that  it  was  long,  and  Gwendolen  in  particular 
that  the  neutral,  placid-faced  Miss  Arrowpoint 
had  a  mastery  of  the  instrument  which  put  her 
own  execution  out  of  the  question — though  she 
was  not  discouraged  as  to  her  often-praised  touch 
and  style.  After  this  every  one  became  anxious 
to  hear  Gwendolen  sing ;  especially  Mr.  Arrow- 
point;  as  was  natural  in  a  host  and  a  perfect 
gentleman,  of  whom  no  one  had  any  thing  to  say 
but  that  he  had  married  Miss  Cuttler,  and  im- 
ported the  best  cigars ;  and  he  led  her  to  the  pi- 
ano with  easy  politeness.  Herr  Klesmer  closed 
the  instrument  in  readiness  for  her,  and  smiled 
with  pleasure  at  her  approach ;  then  placed  him- 
self at  the  distance  of  a  few  feet  so  that  he  could 
see  her  as  she  sang. 

Gwendolen  was  not  nervous :  what  she  under- 
took to  do  she  did  without  trembling,  and  singing 
was  an  enjoyment  to  her.  Her  voice  was  a  mod- 
erately powerful  soprano  (some  one  had  told  her 
it  was  like  Jenny  Lind's),  her  ear  good,  and  she 
was  able  to  keep  in  tune,  so  that  her  singing  gave 
pleasure  to  ordinary  hearers,  and  she  had  been 
used  to  unmingled  applause.  She  had  the  rare 
advantage  of  looking  almost  prettier  when  she 
was  singing  than  at  other  times,  and  that  Herr 
Klesmer  was  in  front  of  her  seemed  not  disa- 
greeable. Her  song,  determined  on  beforehand, 
was  a  favorite  aria  of  Bellini's,  in  which  she  felt 
quite  sure  of  herself. 

"  Charming !"  said  Mr.  Arrowpoint,  who  had 
remained  near,  and  the  word  was  echoed  around 
without  more  insincerity  than  we  recognize  in  a 
brotherly  way  as  human.  But  Herr  Klesmer 
stood  like  a  statue — if  a  statue  can  be  imagined 
in  spectacles ;  at  least,  he  was  as  mute  as  a 
statue.  Gwendolen  was  pressed  to  keep  her  seat 
and  double  the  general  pleasure,  and  she  did  not 
wish  to  refuse ;  but  before  resolving  to  do  so  she 
moved  a  little  toward  Herr  Klesmer,  saying,  with 
a  look  of  smiling  appeal,  "  It  would  be  too  cruel 
to  a  great  musician.  You  can  not  like  to  hear 
poor  amateur  singing." 
B 


"No,  truly;  but  that  makes  nothing,"  said 
Herr  Klesmer,  suddenly  speaking  in  an  odious 
German  fashion  with  staccato  endings,  quite  un- 
observable  in  him  before,  and  apparently  depend- 
ing on  a  change  of  mood,  as  Irishmen  resume 
their  strongest  brogue  when  they  are  fervid  or 
quarrelsome.  "That  makes  nothing.  It  is  al- 
ways acceptable  to  see  you  sing." 

Was  there  ever  so  unexpected  an  assertion  of 
superiority  ?  at  least  before  the  late  Teutonic  con- 
quests ?  Gwendolen  colored  deeply,  but,  with  her 
usual  presence  of  mind,  did  not  show  an  ungrace- 
ful resentment  by  moving  away  immediately  ;  and 
Miss  Arrowpoint,  who  had  been  near  enough  to 
overhear  (and  also  to  observe  that  Herr  Klesmer's 
mode  of  looking  at  Gwendolen  was  more  conspic- 
uously admiring  than  was  quite  consistent  with 
good  taste),  now  with  the  utmost  tact  and  kind- 
ness came  close  to  her,  and  said, 

"  Imagine  what  I  have  to  go  through  with  this 
professor  !  He  can  hardly  tolerate  any  thing  we 
English  do  in  music.  We  can  only  put  up  with 
his  severity,  and  make  use  of  it  to  find  out  the 
worst  that  can  be  said  of  us.  It  is  a  little  com- 
fort to  know  that ;  and  one  can  bear  it  when  ev- 
ery one  else  is  admiring." 

"I  should  be  very  much  obliged  to  him  for 
telling  me  the  worst,"  said  Gwendolen,  recovering 
herself.  "  I  dare  say  I  have  been  extremely  ill 
taught,  in  addition  to  having  no  talent — only  liking 
for  music."  This  was  very  well  expressed,  con- 
sidering that  it  had  never  entered  her  mind  be- 
fore. 

"  Yes,  it  is  true ;  you  have  not  been  well  taught," 
said  Herr  Klesmer,  quietly.  Woman  was  dear  to 
him,  but  music  was  dearer.  "  Still,  you  are  not 
quite  without  gifts.  You  sing  in  tune,  and  you 
have  a  pretty  fair  organ.  But  you  produce  your 
notes  badly ;  and  that  music  which  you  sing  is 
beneath  you.  It  is  a  form  of  melody  which  ex- 
presses a  puerile  state  of  culture — a  dandling, 
canting,  seesaw  kind  of  stuff — the  passion  and 
thought  of  people  without  any  breadth  of  hori- 
zon. There  is  a  sort  of  self-satisfied  folly  about 
every  phrase  of  such  melody :  no  cries  of  deep, 
mysterious  passion— no  conflict — no  sense  of  the 
universal.  It  makes  men  small  as  they  listen  to 
it.  Sing  now  something  larger.  And  I  shall  see." 

"  Oh,  not  now.  By-and-by,"  said  Gwendolen, 
with  a  sinking  of  heart  at  the  sudden  width  of 
horizon  opened  round  her  small  musical  perform- 
ance. For  a  young  lady  desiring  to  lead,  this  first 
encounter  in  her  campaign  was  startling.  But 
she  was  bent  on  not  behaving  foolishly,  and  Miss 
Arrowpoint  helped  her  by  saying, 

"Yes,  by-and-by.  I  always  require  half  an 
hour  to  get  up  my  courage  after  being  criticised 
by  Herr  Klesmer.  We  will  ask  him  to  play  to 
us  now :  he  is  bound  to  show  us  what  is  good 
music." 

To  be  quite  safe  on  this  point  Heir  Klesmer 
played  a  composition  of  his  own,  a  fantasia  called 
Freudvoll,  Leidvoll,  Gedankenvoll — an  extensive 
commentary  on  some  melodic  ideas  not  too  grossly 
evident ;  and  he  certainly  fetched  as  much  variety 
and  depth  of  passion  out  of  the  piano  as  that 
moderately  responsive  instrument  lends  itself  to, 
having  an  imperious  magic  in  his  fingers  that 
seemed  to  send  a  nerve-thrill  through  ivory  key 
and  wooden  hammer,  and  compel  the  strings  to 
make  a  quivering  lingering  speech  for  him. 
Gwendolen,  in  spite  of  her  wounded  egoism,  had 


IS 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


fullness  of  nature  enough  to  feel  the  power  of 
this  playing,  and  it  gradually  turned  her  inward 
sob  of  mortification  into  an  excitement  which 
lifted  her  for  the  moment  into  a  desperate  indif- 
ference about  her  own  doings,  or  at  least  a  deter- 
mination to  get  a  superiority  over  them  by  laugh- 
ing at  them  as  if  they  belonged  to  somebody  else. 
Her  eyes  had  become  brighter,  her  cheeks  slight- 
ly flushed,  and  her  tongue  ready  for  any  mischiev- 
ous remarks. 

"  I  wish  you  would  sing  to  us  again,  Miss  Har- 
leth,"  said  young  Clintock,  the  archdeacon's  clas- 
sical son,  who  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to  take 
her  to  dinner,  and  came  up  to  renew  conversation 
as  soon  as  Herr  Klesmer's  performance  was  end- 
ed. "  That  is  the  style  of  music  for  me.  I  nev- 
er can  make  any  thing  of  this  tip-top  playing.  It 
is  like  a  jar  of  leeches,  where  you  can  never  tell 
either  beginnings  or  endings.  I  could  listen  to 
your  singing  all  day." 

"  Yes,  we  should  be  glad  of  something  popular 
now — another  song  from  you  would  be  a  relaxa- 
tion," said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  who  had  also  come 
near  with  polite  intentions. 

"That  must  be  because  you  are  in  a  puerile 
state  of  culture,  and  have  no  breadth  of  horizon. 
I  have  just  learned  that.  I  have  been  taught 
how  bad  my  taste  is,  and  am  feeling  growing 
pains.  They  are  never  pleasant,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, not  taking  any  notice  of  Mrs.  Arrowpoint, 
and  looking  up  with  a  bright  smile  at  young 
Clintock. 

Mrs.  Arrowpoint  was  not  insensible  to  this 
rudeness,  but  merely  said,  "  Well,  we  will  not 
press  any  thing  disagreeably  ;"  and  as  there  was 
a  perceptible  outrush  of  imprisoned  conversation 
just  then,  and  a  movement  of  guests  seeking  each 
other,  she  remained  seated  where  she  was,  and 
looked  round  her  with  the  relief  of  the  hostess  at 
finding  she  is  not  needed. 

"  I  am  glad  you  like  this  neighborhood,"  said 
young  Clintock,  well  pleased  with  his  station  in 
front  of  Gwendolen. 

"Exceedingly.  There  seems  to  be  a  little  of 
every  thing  and  not  much  of  any  thing." 

"  That  is  rather  equivocal  praise." 

"  Not  with  me.  I  like  a  little  of  every  thing ; 
a  little  absurdity,  for  example,  is  very  amusing. 
I  am  thankful  for  a  few  queer  people.  But  much 
of  them  is  a  bore." 

(Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  who  was  hearing  this  dia- 
logue, perceived  quite  a  new  tone  in  Gwendolen's 
speech,  and  felt  a  revival  of  doubt  as  to  her  in- 
terest in  Tasso's  madness.) 

"  I  think  there  should  be  more  croquet,  for  one 
thing,"  said  young  Clintock ;  "  I  am  usually  away, 
but,  if  I  were  more  here,  I  should  go  in  for  a  cro- 
quet club.  You  are  one  of  the  archers,  I  think. 
But  depend  upon  it  croquet  is  the  game  of  the 
future.  It  wants  writing  up,  though.  One  of  our 
best  men  has  written  a  poem  on  it,  in  four  cantos 
— as  good  as  Pope.  I  want  him  to  publish  it. 
You  never  read  any  thing  better." 

"  I  shall  study  croquet  to-morrow.  I  shall  take 
to  it  instead  of  singing." 

"  No,  no,  not  that.  But  do  take  to  croquet.  I 
will  send  you  Jenning's  poem,  if  you  like.  I  have 
a  manuscript  copy." 

"  Is  he  a  great  friend  of  yours  ?" 

"  Well,  rather." 

"Oh,  if  he  is  only  rather,  I  think  I  will  decline. 
Or,  if  you  send  it  me,  will  you  promise  not  to 


catechise  me  upon  it,  and  ask  me  which  part  I 
like  best  ?  Because  it  is  not  so  easy  to  know  a 
poem  without  reading  it  as  to  know  a  sermon 
without  listening." 

"  Decidedly,"  Mrs.  Arrowpoint  thought,  "  this 
girl  is  double  and  satirical.  I  shall  be  on  my 
guard  against  her." 

But  Gwendolen,  nevertheless,  continued  to  re- 
ceive polite  attentions  from  the  family  at  Quet- 
cham,  not  merely  because  invitations  have  larger 
grounds  than  those  of  personal  liking,  but  because 
the  trying  little  scene  at  the  piano  had  awakened 
a  kindly  solicitude  toward  her  in  the  gentle  mind 
of  Miss  Arrowpoint,  who  managed  all  the  invita- 
tions and  visits,  her  mother  being  otherwise  oc- 
cupied. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"  Croyez  vons  m'avoir  hnmilioe  ponr  m'avoir  nppria 
qne  la  terre  tourne  autour  dn  soleil  ?  Je  vous  jure  qne 
je  ne  m'en  estime  pas  moins." — FONTKNELI.K:  Plura- 
lite  dee  Mondes. 

THAT  lofty  criticism  had  caused  Gwendolen  a 
new  sort  of  pain.  She  would  not  have  chosen  to 
confess  how  unfortunate  she  thought  herself  in 
not  having  had  Miss  Arrowpoint's  musical  advan- 
tages, so  as  to  be  able  to  question  Herr  Klesmer's 
taste  with  the  confidence  of  thorough  knowledge ; 
still  less,  to  admit  even  to  herself  that  Miss  Ar- 
rowpoint each  time  they  met  raised  an  unwonted 
feeling  of  jealousy  in  her :  not  in  the  least  be- 
cause she  was  an  heiress,  but  because  it  was  real- 
ly provoking  that  a  girl  whose  appearance  you 
could  not  characterize  except  by  saying  that  her 
figure  was  slight  and  of  middle  stature,  her  feat- 
ures small,  her  eyes  tolerable,  and  her  complex- 
ion sallow,  had  nevertheless  a  certain  mental  su- 
periority which  could  not  be  explained  away — an 
exasperating  thoroughness  in  her  musical  accom- 
plishment, a  fastidious  discrimination  in  her  gen- 
eral tastes,  which  made  it  impossible  to  force  her 
admiration  and  kept  you  in  awe  of  her  standard. 
This  insignificant-looking  young  lady  of  four-and- 
twenty,  whom  any  one's  eyes  would  have  passed 
over  negligently  if  she  had  not  been  Miss  Arrow- 
point,  might  be  suspected  of  a  secret  opinion  that 
Miss  Harleth's  acquirements  were  rather  of  a 
common  order;  and  such  an  opinion  was  not 
made  agreeable  to  think  of  by  being  always  veil- 
ed under  a  perfect  kindness  of  manner. 

But  Gwendolen  did  not  like  to  dwell  on  facts 
which  threw  an  unfavorable  light  on  herself.  The 
musical  Magus  who  had  so  suddenly  widened  her 
horizon  was  not  always  on  the  scene ;  and  his 
being  constantly  backward  and  forward  between 
London  and  Quetcham  soon  began  to  be  thought 
of  as  offering  opportunities  for  converting  him 
to  a  more  admiring  state  of  mind.  Meanwhile,  in 
the  manifest  pleasure  her  singing  gave  at  Brack- 
enshaw  Castle,  the  Firs,  and  elsewhere,  she  recov- 
ered her  equanimity,  being  disposed  to  think  ap- 
proval more  trustworthy  than  objection,  and  not 
being  one  of  the  exceptional  persons  who  have  a 
parching  thirst  for  a  perfection  undcmanded  by 
their  neighbors.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  ras»h 
to  say  then  that  she  was  at  all  exceptional  inward- 
ly, or  that  the  unusual  in  her  was  more  than  her 
rare  grace  of  movement  and  bearing,  and  a  cer- 
tain daring  which  gave  piquancy  to  a  very  com- 
mon egoistic  ambition,  such  as  exists  under  many 
clumsy  exteriors,  and  is  taken  no  notice  of.  For 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


19 


I  suppose  that  the  set  of  the  head  does  not  really 
determine  the  hunger  of  the  inner  self  for  su- 
premacy :  it  only  makes  a  difference  sometimes 
as  to  the  way  in  which  the  supremacy  is  held 
attainable,  and  a  little  also  to  the  degree  in  which 
it  can  be  attained ;  especially  when  the  hungry 
one  is  a  girl,  whose  passion  for  doing  what  is  re- 
markable has  an  ideal  limit  in  consistency  with 
the  highest  breeding  and  perfect  freedom  from 
the  sordid  need  of  income.  Gwendolen  was  as 
inwardly  rebellious  against  the  restraints  of  family 
conditions,  and  as  ready  to  look  through  obliga- 
tions into  her  own  fundamental  want  of  feeling 
for  them,  as  if  she  had  been  sustained  by  the 
boldest  speculations ;  but  she  really  had  no  such 
speculations,  and  would  at  once  have  marked 
herself  off  from  any  sort  of  theoretical  or  practi- 
cally reforming  women  by  satirizing  them.  She 
rejoiced  to  feel  herself  exceptional ;  but  her  ho- 
rizon was  that  of  the  genteel  romance  where  the 
heroine's  soul  poured  out  in  her  journal  is  full 
of  vague  power,  originality,  and  general  rebellion, 
while  her  life  moves  strictly  in  the  sphere  of 
fashion ;  and  if  she  wanders  into  a  swamp,  the 
pathos  lies  partly,  so  to  speak,  in  her  having  on 
her  satin  shoes.  Here  is  a  restraint  which  nature 
and  society  have  provided  on  the  pursuit  of 
striking  adventure ;  so  that  a  soul  burning  with 
a  sense  of  what  the  universe  is  not,  and  ready  to 
take  all  existence  as  fuel,  is  nevertheless  held 
captive  by  the  ordinary  wire-work  of  social  forms, 
and  does  nothing  particular. 

This  commonplace  result  was  what  Gwendolen 
found  herself  threatened  with  even  in  the  novelty 
of  the  first  winter  at  Offendene.  What  she  was 
clear  upon  was,  that  she  did  not  wish  to  lead  the 
same  sort  of  life  as  ordinary  young  ladies  did ; 
but  what  she  was  not  clear  upon  was,  how  she 
should  set  about  leading  any  other,  and  what 
were  the  particular  acts  which  she  would  assert 
her  freedom  by  doing.  Offendene  remained  a 
good  background,  if  any  thing  would  happen 
there ;  but  on  the  whole  the  neighborhood  was 
in  fault. 

Beyond  the  effect  of  her  beauty  on  a  first  pres- 
entation, there  was  not  much  excitement  to  be 
got  out  of  her  earliest  invitations,  and  she  came 
home  after  little  sallies  of  satire  and  knowingness 
such  as  had  offended  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  to  fill  the 
intervening  days  with  the  most  girlish  devices. 
The  strongest  assertion  she  was  able  to  make  of 
her  individual  claims  was  to  leave  out  Alice's  les- 
sons (on  the  principle  that  Alice  was  more  likely 
to  excel  in  ignorance),  and  to  employ  her  with 
Miss  Merry,  and  the  maid  who  was  understood  to 
wait  on  all  the  ladies,  in  helping  to  arrange  vari- 
ous dramatic  costumes  which  Gwendolen  pleased 
herself  with  having  in  readiness  for  some  fu- 
ture occasions  of  acting  in  charades  or  theatrical 
pieces,  occasions  which  she  meant  to  bring  about 
by  force  of  will  or  contrivance.  She  had  never 
acted — only  made  a  figure  in  tableaux  vivants  at 
school ;  but  she  felt  assured  that  she  could  act 
well,  and  having  been  once  or  twice  to  the  Thea- 
tre Frangais,  and  also  heard  her  mamma  speak 
of  Rachel,  her  waking  dreams  and  cogitations  as 
to  how  she  would  manage  her  destiny  sometimes 
turned  on  the  question  whether  she  should  be- 
come an  actress  like  Rachel,  since  she  was  more 
beautiful  than  that  thin  Jewess.  Meanwhile  the 
wet  days  before  Christmas  were  passed  pleasant- 
ly in  the  preparation  of  costumes,  Greek,  Orient- 


al,  and  Composite,  in  which  Gwendolen  attitudi- 
nized and  speechified  before  a  domestic  audience, 
including  even  the  housekeeper,  who  was  once 
pressed  into  it  that  she  might  swell  the  notes  of 
applause ;  but  having  shown  herself  unworthy  by 
observing  that  Miss  Harleth  looked  far  more  like 
a  queen  in  her  own  dress  than  in  that  baggy  thing 
with  her  arms  all  bare,  she  was  not  invited  a  sec- 
ond time. 

"  Do  I  look  as  well  as  Rachel,  mamma  ?"  said 
Gwendolen  one  day,  when  she  had  been  showing 
herself  in  her  Greek  dress  to  Anna,  and  going 
through  scraps  of  scenes  with  much  tragic  inten- 
tion. 

"You  have  better  arms  than  Rachel,"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow ;  "  your  arms  would  do  for  any 
thing,  Gwen.  But  your  voice  is  not  so  tragic  as 
hers ;  it  is  not  so  deep." 

"  I  can  make  it  deeper  if  I  like,"  said  Gwendo- 
len, provisionally ;  then  she  added,  with  decision, 
"  I  think  a  higher  voice  is  more  tragic ;  it  is  more 
feminine;  and  the  more  feminine  a  woman  is, 
the  more  tragic  it  seems  when  she  does  desperate 
actions." 

"  There  may  be  something  in  that,"  said  Mrs. 
Davilow,  languidly.  "But  I  don't  know  what 
good  there  is  in  making  one's  blood  creep.  And 
if  there  is  any  thing  horrible  to  be  done,  I  should 
like  it  to  be  left  to  the  men." 

"  Oh,  mamma,  you  are  so  dreadfully  prosaic ! 
As  if  all  the  great  poetic  criminals  were  not  wom- 
en !  I  think  the  men  are  poor  cautious  creatures." 

"  Well,  dear,  and  you — who  are  afraid  to  be 
alone  in  the  night — I  don't  think  you  would  be 
very  bold  in  crime,  thank  God." 

"  I  am  not  talking  about  reality,  mamma,"  said 
Gwendolen,  impatiently.  Then,  her  mamma  be- 
ing called  out  of  the  room,  she  turned  quickly  to 
her  cousin,  as  if  taking  an  opportunity,  and  said, 
"Anna,  do  ask  my  uncle  to  let  us  get  up  some 
charades  at  the  Rectory.  Mr.  Middleton  and  War- 
ham  could  act  with  us — just  for  practice.  Mam- 
ma says  it  will  not  do  to  have  Mr.  Middleton  con- 
sulting and  rehearsing  here.  He  is  a  stick,  but 
we  could  give  him  suitable  parts.  Do  ask ;  or 
else  I  will." 

"  Oh,  not  till  Rex  comes.  He  is  so  clever,  and 
such  a  dear  old  thing,  and  he  will  act  Napoleon 
looking  over  the  sea.  He -looks  just  like  Napo- 
leon. Rex  can  do  any  thing." 

"  I  don't  in  the  least  believe  in  your  Rex,  Anna," 
said  Gwendolen,  laughing  at  her.  "  He  will  turn 
out  to  be  like  those  wretched  blue  and  yellow 
water-colors  of  his  which  you  hang  up  in  your 
bedroom  and  worship." 

"  Very  well,  you  will  see,"  said  Anna.  "  It  is 
not  that  I  know  what  is  clever,  but  he  has  got  a 
scholarship  already,  and  papa  says  he  will  get  a 
fellowship,  and  nobody  is  better  at  games.  He 
is  cleverer  than  Mr.  Middleton,  and  every  body 
but  you  calls  Mr.  Middleton  clever." 

"  So  he  may  be  in  a  dark-lantern  sort  of  way. 
But  he  is  a  stick.  If  he  had  to  say, '  Perdition 
catch  my  soul,  but  I  do  love  her !'  he  would  say 
it  in  just  the  same  tone  as, '  Here  endeth  the  sec- 
ond lesson.' " 

"  Oh,  Gwendolen !"  said  Anna,  shocked  at  these 
promiscuous  allusions.  "And  it  is  very  unkind 
of  you  to  speak  so  of  him,  for  he  admires  you 
very  much.  I  heard  Warham  say  one  day  to 
mamma",  'Middleton  is  regularly  spooney  upon 
Gwendolen.'  She  was  very  angry  with  him ;  but 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


I  know  what  it  means.  It  is  what  they  say  at 
college  for  being  in  love." 

"  How  can  I  help  it  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  rather 
contemptuously.  "Perdition  catch  my  soul  if  I 
love  him." 

"  No,  of  course ;  papa,  I  think,  would  not  wish 
it.  And  he  is  to  go  away  soon.  But  it  makes 
me  sorry  when  you  ridicule  him." 

"  What  shall  you  do  to  me  when  I  ridicule 
Rex  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  wickedly. 

"Xow,  Gwendolen  dear,  you  mil  not?"  said 
Anna,  her  eyes  tilling  with  tears.  "  I  could  not 
bear  it.  But  there  really  is  nothing  hi  him  to 
ridicule.  Only  you  may  find  out  things.  For  no 
one  ever  thought  of  laughing  at  Mr.  Middleton 
before  you.  Every  one  said  he  was  nice-look- 
ing, and  his  manners  perfect.  I  am  sure  I  have 
always  been  frightened  at  him  because  of  his 
learning  and  his  square-cut  coat,  and  his  being  a 
nephew  of  the  bishop's  and  all  that.  But  you 
will  not  ridicule  Rex — promise  me."  Anna  end- 
ed with  a  beseeching  look  which  touched  Gwen- 
dolen. 

"  You  are  a  dear  little  coz,"  she  said,  just  touch- 
ing the  tip  of  Anna's  chin  with  her  thumb  and 
forefinger.  "  I  don't  ever  want  to  do  any  thing 
that  will  vex  you.  Especially  if  Rex  is  to  make 
every  thing  come  off — charades  and  every  thing." 

And  when  at  last  Rex  was  there,  the  anima- 
tion he  brought  into  the  life  at  Offendene  and  the 
Rectory,  and  his  ready  partnership  in  Gwendolen's 
plans,  left  her  no  inclination  for  any  ridicule  that 
was  not  of  an  open  and  flattering  kind,  such  as 
he  himself  enjoyed.  He  was  a  fine  open-hearted 
youth,  with  a  handsome  face  strongly  resembling 
his  father's  and  Anna's,  but  softer  in  expression 
than  the  one,  and  larger  in  scale  than  the  other : 
a  bright,  healthy,  loving  nature,  enjoying  ordinary, 
innocent  things  so  much  that  vice  had  no  tempta- 
tion for  him,  and  what  he  knew  of  it  lay  too  en- 
tirely in  the  outer  courts  and  little-visited  cham- 
bers of  his  mind  for  him  to  think  of  it  with  great 
repulsion.  Vicious  habits  were  with  him  "  what 
some  fellows  did" — "  stupid  stuff"  which  he  liked 
to  keep  aloof  from.  He  returned  Anna's  affec- 
tion as  fully  as  could  be  expected  of  a  brother 
whose  pleasures  apart  from  her  were  more  than 
the  sum  total  of  hers ;  and  he  had  never  known 
a  stronger  love. 

The  cousins  were  continually  together  at  the 
one  house  or  the  other  —  chiefly  at  Offendene, 
where  there  was  more  freedom,  or  rather  where 
there  was  a  more  complete  sway  for  Gwendolen ; 
and  whatever  she  wished  became  a  ruling  purpose 
for  Rex.  The  charades  came  off  according  to  her 
plans ;  and  also  some  other  little  scenes  not  con- 
templated by  her  in  which  her  acting  was  more 
impromptu.  It  was  at  Offendene  that  the  cha- 
rades and  tableaux  were  rehearsed  and  present- 
ed, Mrs.  Davilow  seeing  no  objection  even  to  Mr. 
Middleton's  being  invited  to  share  in  them,  now 
that  Rex  too  was  there — especially  as  his  serv- 
ices were  indispensable ;  Warham,  who  was  study- 
ing for  India  with  a  Wancester  "  coach,"  having 
no  time  to  spare,  and  being  generally  dismal  un- 
der a  cram  of  every  thing  except  the  answers 
needed  at  the  forth-coming  examination,  which 
might  disclose  the  welfare  of  our  Indian  Empire 
to  be  somehow  connected  with  a  quotable  knowl- 
edge of  Browne's  Pastorals. 

Mr.  Middleton  was  persuaded  to  play' various 
grave  parts,  Gwendolen  having  flattered  him  on 


his  enviable  immobility  of  countenance ;  and,  at 
first  a  little  pained  and  jealous  at  her  comrade- 
ship with  Rex,  he  presently  drew  encouragement 
from  the  thought  that  this  sort  of  cousinly  famil- 
iarity excluded  any  serious  passion.  Indeed,  he 
occasionally  felt  that  her  more  formal  treatment 
of  himself  was  such  a  sign  of  favor  as  to  warrant 
his  making  advances  before  he  left  Pennicote, 
though  he  had  intended  to  keep  his  feelings  in 
reserve  until  his  position  should  be  more  assured. 
Miss  Gwendolen,  quite  aware  that  she  was  adored 
by  this  unexceptionable  young  clergyman  with 
pale  whiskers  and  square-cut  collar,  felt  nothing 
more  on  the  subject  than  that  she  had  no  objec- 
tion to  be  adored :  she  turned  her  eyes  on  him 
with  calm  mercilessness  and  caused  him  many 
mildly  agitating  hopes  by  seeming  always  to 
avoid  dramatic  contact  with  him — for  all  mean- 
ings, we  know,  depend  on  the  key  of  interpreta- 
tion. 

Some  persons  might  have  thought  beforehand 
that  a  young  man  of  Anglican  leanings,  having 
a  sense  of  sacredness  much  exercised  on  small 
things  as  well  as  great,  rarely  laughing  save  from 
politeness,  and  in  general  regarding  the  mention 
of  spades  by  their  naked  names  as  rather  coarse, 
would  not  have  seen  a  fitting  bride  for  himself  in 
a  girl  who  was  daring  in  ridicule,  and  showed 
none  of  the  special  grace  required  in  the  clergy- 
man's wife ;  or,  that  a  young  man  informed  by 
theological  reading  would  have  reflected  that  he 
was  not  likely  to  meet  the  taste  of  a  lively,  rest- 
less young  lady  like  Miss  Harleth.  But  are  we 
always  obliged  to  explain  why  the  facts  are  not 
what  some  persons  thought  beforehand?  The 
apology  lies  on  their  side,  who  had  that  erroneous 
way  of  thinking. 

As  for  Rex,  who  would  possibly  have  been  sor- 
ry for  poor  Middleton  if  he  had  been  aware  of 
the  excellent  curate's  inward  conflict,  he  was  too 
completely  absorbed  in  a  first  passion  to  have  ob- 
servation for  any  person  or  thing.  He  did  not 
observe  Gwendolen ;  he  only  felt  what  she  said 
or  did,  and  the  back  of  his  head  seemed  to  be  a 
good  organ  of  information  as  to  whether  she  was 
in  the  room  or  out.  Before  the  end  of  the  first 
fortnight  he  was  so  deeply  in  love  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  to  think  of  his  life  except  as 
bound  up  with  Gwendolen's.  He  could  see  no 
obstacles,  poor  boy;  his  own  love  seemed  a 
guarantee  of  hers,  since  it  was  one  with  the  un- 
perturbed delight  in  her  image,  so  that  he  could 
no  more  dream  of  her  giving  him  p.iin  than  an 
Egyptian  could  dream  of  snow.  She  sung. and 
played  to  him  whenever  he  liked,  was  always  glad 
of  his  companionship  in  riding,  though  his  bor- 
rowed steeds  were  often  comic,  was  ready  to  join 
in  any  fun  of  his,  and  showed  a  right  apprecia- 
tion of  Anna.  No  mark  of  sympathy  seemed  ab- 
sent. That  because  Gwendolen  was  the  most 
perfect  creature  in  the  world  she  was  to  make  a 
<;nui<l  match,  had  not  occurred  to  him.  He  had 
no  conceit — at  least,  not  more  than  goes  to  make 
up  the  necessary  gum  and  consistence  of  a  sub- 
stantial personality :  it  was  only  that  in  the  young 
bliss  of  loving  he  took  Gwendolen's  perfection  as 
part  of  that  good  which  had  seemed  one  with  life 
to  him,  being  the  outcome  of  a  happy,  well-em- 
bodied nature. 

One  incident  which  happened  in  the  course  of 
their  dramatic  attempts  impressed  Rex  as  a  sign 
of  her  unusual  sensibility.  It  showed  an  aspect 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


•21 


of  her  nature  which  could  not  have  been  precon- 
ceived by  any  one  who,  like  him,  had  only  seen 
her  habitual  fearlessness  in  active  exercises  and 
her  high  spirits  in  society. 

After  a  good  deal  of  rehearsing  it  was  resolved 
that  a  select  party  should  be  invited  to  Offendene 
to  witness  the  performances  which  went  with  so 
much  satisfaction  to  the  actors.  Anna  had  caused 
a  pleasant  surprise ;  nothing  could  be  neater  than 
the  way  in  which  she  played  her  little  parts ;  one 
would  even  have  suspected  her  of  hiding  much 
sly  observation  under  her  simplicity.  And  Mr. 
Middleton  answered  very  well  by  not  trying  to  be 
comic.  The  main  source  of  doubt  and  retarda- 
tion had  been  Gwendolen's  desire  to  appear  in 
her  Greek  dress.  No  word  for  a  charade  would 
occur  to  her  either  waking  or  dreaming  that  suit- 
ed her  purpose  of  getting  a  statuesque  pose  in 
this  favorite  costume.  To  choose  a  motive  from 
Racine  was  of  no  use,  since  Rex  and  the  others 
could  not  declaim  French  verse,  and  improvised 
speeches  would  turn  the  scene  into  burlesque. 
Besides,  Mr.  Gascoigne  prohibited  the  acting  of 
scenes  from  plays :  he  usually  protested  against 
the  notion  that  an  amusement  which  was  fitting 
for  every  one  else  was  unfitting  for  a  clergyman ; 
but  he  would  not  in  this  matter  overstep  the  line 
of  decorum  as  drawn  in  that  part  of  Wessex, 
which  did  not  exclude  his  sanction  of  the  young 
people's  acting  charades  in  his  sister-in-law's 
house — a  very  different  affair  from  private  theat- 
ricals in  the  full  sense  of  the  word. 

Every  body,  of  course,  was  concerned  to  satisfy 
this  wish  of  Gwendolen's,  and  Rex  proposed  that 
they  should  wind  up  with  a  tableau  in  which  the 
effect  of  her  majesty  would  not  be  marred  by 
any  one's  speech.  This  pleased  her  thoroughly, 
and  the  only  question  was  the  choice  of  the 
tableau. 

"  Something  pleasant,  children,  I  beseech  you," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow ;  "  I  can't  have  any  Greek  wick- 
edness." 

"It  is  no  worse  than  Christian  wickedness, 
mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  whose  mention  of 
Rachelesque  heroines  had  called  forth  that  re- 
mark. 

"And  less  scandalous,"  said  Rex.  "Besides, 
one  thinks  of  it  as  all  gone  by  and  done  with. 
What  do  you  say  to  Briseis  being  led  away  ?  I 
would  be  Achilles,  and  you  would  be  looking 
round  at  me — after  the  print  we  have  at  the 
Rectory." 

"  That  would  be  a  good  attitude  for  me,"  said 
Gwendolen,  in  a  tone  of  acceptance.  But  after- 
ward she  said,  with  decision,  "  No.  It  will  not 
do.  There  must  be  three  men  in  proper  costume, 
else  it  will  be  ridiculous." 

"  I  have  it !"  said  Rex,  after  a  little  reflection. 
"  Hermione  as  the  statue  in  the  Winter's  Tale ! 
I  will  be  Leontes  and  Miss  Merry  Paulina,  one  on 
each  side.  Our  dress  won't  signify,"  he  went  on, 
laughingly ;  "  it  will  be  more  Shakspearean  and 
romantic  if  Leontes  looks  like  Napoleon,  and 
Paulina  like  a  modern  spinster." 

And  Hermione  was  chosen ;  all  agreeing  that 
age  was  of  no  consequence ;  but  Gwendolen  urged 
that  instead  of  the  mere  tableau  there  should  be 
just  enough  acting  of  "the  scene  to  introduce  the 
striking  up  of  the  music  as  a  signal  for  her  to 
step  down  and  advance ;  when  Leontes,  instead  of 
embracing  her,  was  to  kneel  and  kiss  the  hern  of 
her  garment,  and  so  the  curtain  was  to  fall.  The 


antechamber  with  folding-doors  lent  itself  admi- 
rably to  the  purposes  of  a  stage,  and  the  whole 
of  the  establishment,  with  the  addition  of  Jarrett, 
the  village  carpenter,  was  absorbed  in  the  prep- 
arations for  an  entertainment  which,  considering 
that  it  was  an  imitation  of  acting,  was  likely  to 
be  successful,  since  we  know  from  ancient  fable 
that  an  imitation  may  have  more  chance  of  suc- 
cess than  the  original. 

Gwendolen  was  not  without  a  special  exulta- 
tion in  the  prospect  of  this  occasion,  for  she  knew 
that  Herr  Klesmer  was  again  at  Quetcham,  and 
she  had  taken  care  to  include  him  among  the 
invited. 

Klesmer  came.  He  was  in  one  of  his  placid 
silent  moods,  and  sat  in  serene  contemplation, 
replying  to  all  appeals  in  benignant-sounding  syl- 
lables more  or  less  articulate — as  taking  up  his 
cross  meekly  in  a  world  overgrown  with  ama- 
teurs, or  as  careful  how  he  moved  his  lion  paws, 
lest  he  should  crush  a  rampant  and  vociferous 
mouse. 

Every  thing  indeed  went  off  smoothly  and  ac- 
cording to  expectation — all  that  was  improvised 
and  accidental  being  of  a  probable  sort — until 
the  incident  occurred  which  showed  Gwendolen 
hi  an  unforeseen  phase  of  emotion.  How  it  came 
about  was  at  first  a  mystery. 

The  tableau  of  Hermione  was  doubly  striking 
from  its  dissimilarity  with  what  had  gone  before : 
it  was  answering  perfectly,  and  a  murmur  of  ap- 
plause had  been  gradually  suppressed  while  Le- 
ontes gave  his  permission  that  Paulina  should 
exercise  her  utmost  art  and  make  the  statue 
move. 

Hermione,  her  arm  resting  on  a  pillar,  was  ele- 
vated by  about  six  inches,  which  she  counted  on 
as  a  means  of  showing  her  pretty  foot  and  instep, 
when  at  the  given  signal  she  should  advance  and 
descend. 

"Music,  awake  her,  strike  !"  said  Paulina  (Mrs. 
Davilow,  who  by  special  entreaty  had  consented 
to  take  the  part,  in  a  white  burnous  and  hood). 

Heir  Klesmer,  who  had  been  good-natured 
enough  to  seat  himself  at  the  piano,  struck  a 
thunderous  chord — but  in  the  same  instant,  and 
before  Hermione  had  put  forth  her  foot,  the 
movable  panel,  which  was  on  a  line  with  the  pi- 
ano, flew  open  on  the  right  opposite  the  stage 
and  disclosed  the  picture  of  the  dead  face  and 
the  fleeing  figure,  brought  out  in  pale  definiteness 
by  the  position  of  the  wax-lights.  Every  one 
was  startled,  but  all  eyes  in  the  act  of  turning 
toward  the  opened  panel  were  recalled  by  a  pier- 
cing cry  from  Gwendolen,  who  stood  without 
change  of  attitude,  but  with  a  change  of  expres- 
sion that  was  terrifying  in  its  terror.  She  looked 
like  a  statue  into  which  a  soul  of  Fear  had  entered : 
her  pallid  lips  were  parted ;  her,  eyes,  usually  nar- 
rowed under  their  long  lashes,  were  dilated  and 
fixed.  Her  mother,  less  surprised  than  alarmed, 
rushed  toward  her,  and  Rex  too  could  not  help 
going  to  her  side.  But  the  touch  of  her  mother's 
arm  had  the  effect  of  an  electric  charge ;  Gwen- 
dolen fell  on  her  knees  and  put  her  hands  before 
her  face.  She  was  still  trembling,  but  mute,  and 
it  seemed  that  she  had  self-consciousness  enough 
to  aim  at  controlling  her  signs  of  terror,  for  she 
presently  allowed  herself  to  be  raised  from  her 
kneeling  posture  and  led  away,  while  the  com- 
pany were  relieving  their  minds  by  explanation. 

"A  magnificent  bit  ofplastik  that !"  said  Kles- 


22 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


mer  to  Miss  Arrowpoint.  And  a  quick  fire  of 
under-toned  question  and  answer  went  round. 

"  Was  it  part  of  the  play  ?" 

"  Oh  no,  surely  not.  Miss  Harleth  was  too 
much  affected.  A  sensitive  creature !" 

"  Dear  me !  I  was  not  aware  that  there  was  a 
painting  behind  that  panel ;  were  you  ?" 

"No;  how  should  I?  Some  eccentricity  in 
one  of  the  Earl's  family  long  ago,  I  suppose." 

"  How  very  painful !     Pray  shut  it  up." 

"  Was  the  door  locked  ?  It  is  very  mysteri- 
ous. It  must  be  the  spirits." 

"  But  there  is  no  medium  present." 

"  How  do  you  know  that  ?  We  must  conclude 
that  there  is,  when  such  things  happen." 

"  Oh,  the  door  was  not  locked ;  it  was  probably 
the  sudden  vibration  from  the  piano  that  sent  it 
open." 

This  conclusion  came  from  Mr.  Gascoigne,  who 
begged  Miss  Merry,  if  possible,  to  get  the  key. 
But  this  readiness  to  explain  the  mystery  was 
thought  by  Mrs.  Vulcany  unbecoming  in  a  cler- 
gyman, and  she  observed  in  an  under-tone  that 
Mr.  Gascoigne  was  always  a  little  too  worldly  for 
her  taste.  However,  the  key  was  produced,  and 
the  rector  turned  it  in  the  lock  with  an  emphasis 
rather  offensively  rationalizing — as  who  should 
say,  "  It  will  not  start  open  again" — putting  the 
key  in  his  pocket  as  a  security. 

However,  Gwendolen  soon  re-appeared,  show- 
ing her  usual  spirits,  and  evidently  determined  to 
ignore  as  far  as  she  could  the  striking  change 
she  had  made  in  the  part  of  Hermione. 

But  when  Klesmer  said  to  her,  "  We  have  to 
thank  you  for  devising  a  perfect  climax:  you 
could  not  have  chosen  a  finer  bit  ofplastik,"  there 
was  a  flush  of  pleasure  in  her  face.  She  liked  to 
accept  as  a  belief  what  was  really  no  more  than 
delicate  feigning.  He  divined  that  the  betrayal 
into  a  passion  of  fear  had  been  mortifying  to  her, 
and  wished  her  to  understand  that  he  took  it  for 
good  acting.  Gwendolen  cherished  the  idea  that 
now  he  was  struck  with  her  talent  as  well  as  her 
beauty,  and  her  uneasiness  about  his  opinion  was 
half  turned  to  complacency. 

But  too  many  were  hi  the  secret  of  what  had 
been  included  in  the  rehearsals,  and  what  had 
not,  and  no  one  besides  Klesmer  took  the  trou- 
ble to  soothe  Gwendolen's  imagined  mortification. 
The  general  sentiment  was  that  the  incident 
should  be  let  drop. 

There  had  really  been  a  medium  concerned  in 
the  starting  open  of  the  panel :  one  who  had 
quitted  the  room  in  haste  and  crept  to  bed  in 
much  alarm  of  conscience.  It  was  the  small 
Isabel,  whose  intense  curiosity,  unsatisfied  by  the 
brief  glimpse  she  had  had  of  the  strange  picture 
on  the  day  of  arrival  at  Offendene,  had  kept  her 
on  the  watch  for.  an  opportunity  of  finding  out 
where  Gwendolen  had  put  the  key,  of  stealing  it 
from  the  discovered  drawer  when  the  rest  of  the 
family  were  out,  and  getting  on  a  stool  to  unlock 
the  panel.  While  she  was  indulging  her  thirst 
for  knowledge  in  tlu's  way,  a  noise  which  she 
feared  was  an  approaching  footstep  alarmed  her ; 
she  closed  the  door  and  attempted  hurriedly  to 
lock  it,  but  failing  and  not  daring  to  linger,  she 
withdrew  the  key  and  trusted  that  the  panel 
would  stick,  as  it  seemed  well  inclined  to  do.  In 
this  confidence  she  had  returned  the  key  to  its 
former  place,  stilling  any  anxiety  by  the  thought 
that  if  the  door  were  discovered  to  be  unlocked, 


nobody  could  know  how  the  unlocking  came 
about.  The  inconvenient  Isabel,  like  other  of- 
fenders, did  not  foresee  her  own  impulse  to  con- 
fession, a  fatality  which  came  upon  her  the  morn- 
ing after  the  party,  when  Gwendolen  said  at  the 
breakfast  table,  "  I  know  the  door  was  locked  be- 
fore the  housekeeper  gave  me  the  key,  for  I  tried 
it  myself  afterward.  Some  one  must  have  been 
to  my  drawer  and  taken  the  key." 

It  seemed  to  Isabel  that  Gwendolen's  awful 
eyes  had  rested  on  her  more  than  on  the  other 
sisters,  and  without  any  time  for  resolve  she  said, 
with  a  trembling  lip,  "  Please  forgive  me,  Gwen- 
dolen." 

The  forgiveness  was  sooner  bestowed  than  it 
would  have  been  if  Gwendolen  had  not  desired  to 
dismiss  from  her  own  and  every  one  else's  memo- 
ry any  case  in  which  she  had  shown  her  suscepti- 
bility to  terror.  She  wondered  at  herself  in  these 
occasional  experiences,  which  seemed  like  a  brief 
remembered  madness,  an  unexplained  exception 
from  her  normal  life ;  and  in  this  instance  she 
felt  a  peculiar  vexation  that  her  helpless  fear 
had  shown  itself,  not,  as  usual,  in  solitude,  but 
in  well-lit  company.  Her  ideal  was  to  be  daring 
in  speech  and  reckless  in  braving  dangers,  both 
moral  and  physical ;  and  though  her  practice  fell 
far  behind  her  ideal,  this  short-coming  seemed  to 
be  due  to  the  pettiness  of  circumstances,  the  nar- 
row theatre  which  life  offers  to  a  girl  of  twen- 
ty, who  can  not  conceive  herself  as  any  thing  else 
than  a  lady,  or  as  in  any  position  which  would 
lack  the  tribute  of  respect.  She  had  no  perma- 
nent consciousness  of  other  fetters  or  of  more 
spiritual  restraints,  having  always  disliked  what- 
ever was  presented  to  her  under  the  name  of 
religion  in  the  same  way  that  some  people  dis- 
like arithmetic  and  accounts :  it  had  raised  no 
other  emotion  in  her,  no  alarm,  no  longing ;  so 
that  the  question  whether  she  believed  it  had 
not  occurred  to  her,  any  more  than  it  had  oc- 
curred to  her  to  inquire  into  the  conditions  of 
colonial  property  and  banking,  on  which,  as  she 
had  had  many  opportunities  of  knowing,  the  fam- 
ily fortune  was  dependent.  All  these  facts  about 
herself  she  would  have  been  ready  to  admit,  and 
even,  more  or.  less  indirectly,  to  state.  What  she 
unwillingly  recognized  and  would  have  been  glad 
for  others  to  be  unaware  of  was  that  liability  of 
hers  to  fits  of  spiritual  dread,  though  this  fount- 
ain of  awe  within  her  had  not  found  its  way  into 
connection  with  the  religion  taught  her  or  with 
any  human  relations.  She  waa  ashamed  and 
frightened,  as  at  what  might  happen  again,  in 
remembering  her  tremor  on  suddenly  feeling 
herself  alone,  when,  for  example,  she  was  walk- 
ing without  companionship  and  there  came  some 
rapid  change  in  the  light.  Solitude  in  any  wide 
scene  impressed  her  with  an  undefined  feeling 
of  immeasurable  existence  aloof  from  her,  in  tin- 
midst  of  which  she  was  helplessly  incapable  of 
asserting  herself.  The  little  astronomy  taught 
her  at  school  used  sometimes  to  set  her  imagi- 
nation at  work  in  a  way  that  made  her  tremble ; 
but  always  when  some  one  joined  her  she  recov- 
ered her  indifference  to  the  vustness  in  which 
she  seemed  an  exile ;  she  found  again  her  usual 
world,  in  which  her  will  was  of  sonic  avail,  and 
the  religious  nomenclature  belonging  to  this  world 
was  no  more  identified  for  her  with  those  uneasy 
impressions  of  awe  than  her  uncle's  surplices  seen 
out  of  use  at  the  Rectory.  With  human  ears  and 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


eyes  about  her,  she  had  always  hitherto  recover- 
ed her  confidence,  and  felt  the  possibility  of  win- 
ning empire. 

To  her  mamma  and  others  her  fits  of  timidity 
or  terror  were  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  her 
''  sensitiveness,"  or  the  "  excitability  of  her  na- 
ture;" but  these  explanatory  phrases  required 
conciliation  with  much  .that  seemed  to  be  blank 
indifference  or  rare  self-mastery.  Heat  is  a  great 
agent  and  a  useful  word,  but  considered  as  a 
means  of  explaining  the  universe,  it  requires  an 
extensive  knowledge  of  differences;  and  as  a 
means  of  explaining  character,  "sensitiveness" 
is  in  much  the  same  predicament.  But  who, 
loving  a  creature  like  Gwendolen,  would  not  be 
inclined  to  regard  every  peculiarity  in  her  as  a 
mark  of  pre-eminence  ?  That  was  what  Rex  did. 
After  the  Herrnione  scene,  he  was  more  persuaded 
than  ever  that  she  must  be  instinct  with  all  feel- 
ing, and  not  only  readier  to  respond  to  a  worship- 
ful love,  but  able  to  love  better  than  other  girls. 
Rex  felt  the  summer  on  his  young  wings,  and 
soared  happily. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"  Periqot.  As  the  bonny  lasse  passed  bye, 
Willie.  Hey,  ho,  bonuilasse ! 

P.  She  roode  at  me  with  glanncing  eye, 

W.  As  clear  as  the  crystall  glatwe. 

P.  All  as  the  sunny  beame  so  bright, 

W.  Hey,  ho,  the  sunnebeame  ! 

P.  Glaunceth  from  Phcebus'  face  forthright, 

W.  So  love  into  thy  heart  did  streame." 

— SPE^SKK  :  Shepheard's  Calendar. 
"The  kindliest  symptom,  yet  the  most  alarming 
crisis  in  the  ticklish  state  of  youth ;  the  nourisher  and 
destroyer  of  hopeful  wits ; . . . .  the  servitude  above  free- 
dom; the  gentle  mind's  religion  ;  the  liberal  supersti- 
tion."—CIIAELES  LAMB. 

THE  first  sign  of  the  unimagined  snow-storm 
•was  like  the  transparent  white  cloud  that  seems 
to  set  off  the  blue.  Anna  was  in  the  secret  of 
Rex's  feeling,  though  for  the  first  time  in  their 
lives  he  had  said  nothing  to  her  about  what  he 
most  thought  of,  and  he  only  took  it  for  granted 
that  she  knew  it.  For  the  first  time,  too,  Anna 
could  not  say  to  Rex  what  was  continually  in  her 
mind.  Perhaps  it  might  have  been  a  pain  which 
she  would  have  had  to  conceal,  that  he  should  so 
soon  care  for  some  one  else  more  than  for  her- 
self, if  such  a  feeling  had  not  been  thoroughly 
neutralized  by  doubt  and  anxiety  on  his  behalf. 
Anna  admired  her  cousin — would  have  said,  with 
simple  sincerity,  "  Gwendolen  is  always  very  good 
to  me,"  and  held  it  in  the  order  of  things  for 
herself  to  be  entirely  subject  to  this  cousin ;  but 
she  looked  at  her  with  mingled  fear  and  distrust, 
with  a  puzzled  contemplation  as  of  some  won- 
drous and  beautiful  animal  whose  nature  was  a 
mystery,  and  who,  for  any  thing  Anna  knew, 
might  have  an  appetite  for  devouring  all  the  small 
creatures  that  were  her  own  particular  pets.  And 
now  Anna's  heart  was  sinking  under  the  heavy 
conviction  which  she  dared  not  utter,  that  Gwen- 
dolen would  never  care  for  Rex.  What  she  her- 
self held  in  tenderness  and  reverence  had  con- 
stantly seemed  indifferent  to  Gwendolen,  and  it 
was  easier  to  imagine  her  scorning  Rex  than  re- 
turning any  tenderness  of  his.  Besides,  she  was 
always  thinking  of  being  something  extraordinary. 
And  poor  Rex !  Papa  would  be  angry  with  him, 
if  he  knew.  And  of  course  he  was  too  young 
to  be  in  love  in  that  way ;  and  she,  Anna,  had 


thought  that  it  would  be  years  and  years  before 
any  thing  of  that  sort  came,  and  that  she  would 
be  Rex's  housekeeper  ever  so  long.  But  what  a 
heart  must  that  be  which  did  not  return  his  love ! 
Anna,  in  the  prospect  of  his  suffering,  was  begin- 
ning to  dislike  her  too  fascinating  cousin. 

It  seemed  to  her,  as  it  did  to  Rex,  that  the 
weeks  had  been  filled  with  a  tumultuous  life 
evident  to  all  observers:  if  he  had  been  ques- 
tioned on  the  subject,  he  would  have  said  that  he 
had  no  wish  to  conceal  what  he  hoped  would  be 
an  engagement  which  he  should  immediately  tell 
his  father  of;  and  yet,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  he  was  reserved  not  only  about  his  feelings, 
but — which  was  more  remarkable  to  Anna — 
about  certain  actions.  She,  on  her  side,  was 
nervous  each  time  her  father  or  mother  began  to 
speak  to  her  in  private,  lest  they  should  say  any- 
thing about  Rex  and  Gwendolen.  But  the  elders 
were  not  in  the  least  alive  to  this  agitating  dra- 
ma, which  went  forward  chiefly  in  a  sort  of  pan- 
tomime, extremely  lucid  in  the  minds  thus  ex- 
pressing themselves,  but  easily  missed  by  spec- 
tators who  were  running  their  eyes  over  the 
Guardian  or  the  Clerical  Gazette,  and  regarded 
the  trivialities  of  the  young  ones  with  scarcely 
more  interpretation  than  they  gave  to  the  actions 
of  lively  ants. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Rex  ?"  said  Anna  one 
gray  morning,  when  her  father  had  set  off  in  the 
carriage  to  the  sessions,  Mrs.  Gascoigne  with  him, 
and  she  had  observed  that  her  brother  had  on  his 
antigropelos,  the  utmost  approach  he  possessed 
to  a  hunting  equipment. 

"Going  to  see  the  hounds  throw  off  at  the 
Three  Barns." 

"Are  you  going  to  take  Gwendolen?"  said 
Anna,  timidly. 

"  She  told  you,  did  she  ?" 

"  No ;  but  I  thought —  Does  papa  know  you 
are  going  ?" 

"  Not  that  I  am  aware  of.  I  don't  suppose  he 
would  trouble  himself  about  the  matter." 

"  You  are  going  to  use  his  horse  ?" 

"  He  knows  I  do  that  whenever  I  can." 

"Don't  let  Gwendolen  ride  after  the  hounds, 
Rex,"  said  Anna,  whose  fears  gifted  her  with 
second-sight. 

"Why  not?"  said  Rex,  smiling  rather  pro- 
vokingly. 

"  Papa  and  mamma  and  Aunt  Davilow  all  wish 
her  not  to.  They  think  it  is  not  right  for  her." 

"  Why  should  you  suppose  she  is  going  to  do 
what  is  not  right  ?" 

"Gwendolen  minds  nobody  sometimes,"  said 
Anna,  getting  bolder  by  dint  of  a  little  anger. 

"  Then  she  would  not  mind  me,"  said  Rex,  per- 
versely making  a  joke  of  poor  Anna's  anxiety. 

"  Oh,  Rex,  I  can  not  bear  it.  You  will  make 
yourself  very  unhappy."  Here  Anna  burst  into 
tears. 

"  Nannie,  Nannie,  what  on  earth  is  the  matter 
with  you  ?"  said  Rex,  a  little  impatient  at  being 
kept  in  this  way,  hat  on  and  whip  in  hand. 

"She  will  not  care  for  you  one  bit — I  know 
she  never  will !"  said  the  poor  child,  in  a  sobbing 
whisper.  She  had  lost  all  control  of  herself. 

Rex  reddened,  and  hurried  away  from  her  out 
of  the  hall  door,  leaving  her  to  the  miserable 
consciousness  of  having  made  herself  disagree- 
able in  vain. 

He  did  think  of  her  words  as  he  rode  along: 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


they  had  the  unwelcomeness  which  all  unfavor- 
able fortune-telling  has,  even  when  laughed  at ; 
but  he  quickly  explained  them  as  springing  from 
little  Anna's  tenderness,  and  began  to  be  sorry 
that  he  was  obliged  to  come  away  without  sooth- 
ing her.  Every  other  feeling  on  the  subject,  how- 
ever, was  quickly  merged  in  a  resistant  belief  to 
the  contrary  of  hers,  accompanied  with  a  new  de- 
termination to  prove  that  he  was  right.  This  sort 
of  certainty  had  just  enough  kinship  to  doubt  and 
uneasiness  to  hurry  on  a  confession  which  an  un- 
touched security  might  have  delayed. 

Gwendolen  was  already  mounted  and  riding 
up  and  down  the  avenue  when  Rex  appeared  at 
the  gate.  She  had  provided  herself  against  dis- 
appointment in  case  he  did  not  appear  in  time  by 
having  the  groom  ready  behind  her,  for  she  would 
not  have  waited  beyond  a  reasonable  time.  But 
now  the  groom  was  dismissed,  and  the  two  rode 
away  hi  delightful  freedom.  Gwendolen  was  "in 
her  highest  spirits,  and  Rex  thought  that  she  had 
never  looked  so  lovely  before :  her  figure,  her  long 
white  throat,  and  the  curves  of  her  cheek  and  chin 
were  always  set  off  to  perfection  by  the  compact 
simplicity  of  her  riding-dress.  He  could  not  con- 
ceive a  more  perfect  girl ;  and  to  a  youthful  lover 
like  Rex  it  seems  that  the  fundamental  identity 
of  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful  is  already 
extant  and  manifest  in  the  object  of  his  love. 
Most  observers  would  have  held  it  more  than 
equally  accountable  that  a  girl  should  have  like 
impressions  about  Rex,  for  in  his  handsome  face 
there  was  nothing  corresponding  to  the  undefina- 
ble  stinging  quality — as  it  were  a  trace  of  demon 
ancestry — which  made  some  beholders  hesitate 
in  their  admiration  of  Gwendolen. 

It  was  an  exquisite  January  morning  in  which 
there  was  no  threat  of  rain,  but  a  gray  sky  mak- 
ing the  calmest  background  for  the  charms  of  a 
mild  winter  scene:  the  grassy  borders  of  the 
lanes,  the  hedge-rows  sprinkled  with  red  berries 
and  haunted  with  low  twitterings,  the  purple 
bareness  of  the  elms,  the  rich  brown  of  the  fur- 
rows. The  horses'  hoofs  made  a  musical  chime, 
accompanying  their  young  voices.  She  was  laugh- 
ing at  hia  equipment,  for  he  was  the  reverse  of  a 
dandy,  and  he  was  enjoying  her  laughter:  the 
freshness  of  the  morning  mingled  with  the  fresh- 
ness of  their  youth ;  and  every  sound  that  came 
from  their  clear  throats,  every  glance  they  gave 
each  other,  was  the  bubbling  outflow  from  a 
spring  of  joy.  It  was  all  morning  to  them,  with- 
in and  without.  And  thinking  of  them  in  these 
moments  one  is  tempted  to  that  futile  sort  of 
wishing — if  only  things  could  have  been  a  little 
otherwise  then,  so  as  to  have  been  greatly  other- 
wise after! — if  only  these  two  beautiful  young 
creatures  could  have  pledged  themselves  to  each 
other  then  and  there,  and  never  through  life  have 
swerved  from  that  pledge !  For  some  of  the  good- 
ness which  Rex  believed  in  was  there.  Goodness 
is  a  large,  often  a  prospective  word ;  like  harvest, 
which  at  one  stage  when  we  talk  of  it  lies  all  un- 
der-ground, with  an  indeterminate  future :  is  the 
germ  prospering  in  the  darkness  ?  at  another,  it 
has  put  forth  delicate  green  blades,  and  by-and- 
by  the  trembling  blossoms  are  ready  to  be  dash- 
ed off  by  an  hour  of  rough  wind  or  rain.  Each 
stage  has  its  peculiar  blight,  and  may  have  the 
healthy  life  choked  out  of  it  by  a  particular  ac- 
tion of  the  foul  land  which  rears  or  neighbors  it, 
or  by  damage  brought  from  foulness  afar. 


"  Anna  had  got  it  into  her  head  that  you  would 
want  to  ride  after  the  hounds  this  morning,"  said 
Rex,  whose  secret  associations  with  Anna's  words 
made  this  speech  seem  quite  perilously  near  the 
most  momentous  of  subjects. 

"Did  she?"  said  Gwendolen,  laughingly. 
What  a  little  clairvoyant  she  is !" 

"  Shall  you  ?"  said  Rex,  who  had  not  believed 
in  her  intending  to  do  it  if  the  elders  objected, 
but  confided  in  her  having  good  reasons. 

"I  don't  know.  I  can't  tell  what  I  shall  do 
till  I  get  there.  Clairvoyants  are  often  wrong: 
they  foresee  what  is  likely.  I  am  not  fond  of 
what  is  likely ;  it  is  always  dull.  I  do  what  is 
unlikely." 

"Ah,  there  you  tell  me  a  secret.  When  once 
I  knew  what  people  in  general  would  be  likely  to 
do,  I  should  know  you  would  do  the  opposite. 
So  you  would  have  come  round  to  a  likelihood  of 
your  own  sort.  I  shall  be  able  to  calculate  on 
you.  You  couldn't  surprise  me." 

"  Yes,  I  could.  I  should  turn  round  and  do 
what  was  likely  for  people  in  general,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, with  a  musical  laugh. 

"  You  see  you  can't  escape  some  sort  of  likeli- 
hood. And  contradictoriness  makes  the  strongest 
likelihood  of  all.  You  must  give  up  a  plan." 

"No,  I  shall  not.     My  plan  is  to  do  what 


pleases  me."  (Here  should  any  young  lady  in- 
cline to  imitate  Gwendolen,  let  her  consider  the 
set  of  her  head  and  neck :  if  the  angle  there  had 
been  different,  the  chin  protrusive,  and  the  cervi- 
cal vertebrae  a  trifle  more  curved  in  their  position, 
ten  to  one  Gwendolen's  words  would  have  had  a 
jar  in  them  for  the  sweet-natured  Rex.  But  ev- 
ery thing  odd  in  her  speech  was  humor  and  pret- 
ty banter,  which  he  was  only  anxious  to  turn  to- 
ward one  point.) 

"Can  you  manage  to  feel  only  what  pleases 
you  ?"  said  he. 

"  Of  course  not ;  that  comes  from  what  other 
people  do.  But  if  the  world  were  plcasanter,  one 
would  only  feel  what  was  pleasant.  Girls'  lives 
are  so  stupid :  they  never  do  what  they  like." 

"  I  thought  that  was  more  the  case  of  the  men. 
They  are  forced  to  do  hard  things,  and  are  often 
dreadfully  bored,  and  knocked  to  pieces  too.  And 
then,  if  we  love  a  girl  very  dearly,  we  want  to  do 
as  she  likes;  so,  after  all,  you  have  your  own 
way." 

"I  don't  believe  it.  I  never  saw  a  married 
woman  who  had  her  own  way." 

"  What  should  you  like  to  do  ?"  said  Rex,  quite 
guilelessly,  and  in  real  anxiety. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know ! — go  to  the  North  Pole,  or 
ride  steeple-chases,  or  go  to  be  a  queen  in  the 
East,  like  Lady  Hester  Stanhope,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, flightily.  Her  words  were  born  on  her 
lips,  but  she  would  have  been  at  a  loss  to  give  an 
answer  of  deeper  origin. 

"You  don't  mean  you  would  never  be  mar- 
ried?" 

"  No ;  I  didn't  say  that.  Only  when  I  married 
I  should  not  do  as  other  women  do." 

"  You  might  do  just  as  you  liked  if  you  mar- 
ried a  man  who  loved  you  more  dearly  than  any 
thing  else  in  the  world,"  said  Rex,  who,  poor 
youth,  was  moving  in  themes  outside  the  curricu- 
lum in  which  he  had  promised  to  win  distinction. 
"  I  know  one  who  does." 

"  Don't  talk  of  Mr.  Middleton,  for  Heaven's 
sake!"  said  Gwendolen,  hastily,  a  quick  blush 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


spreading  over  her  face  and  neck ;  "  that  is  An- 
na's chant.  I  hear  the  hounds.  Let  us  go  on." 
She  put  her  chestnut  to  a  canter,  and  Rex  had 
no  choice  but  to  follow  her.  Still,  he  felt  encour- 
aged. Gwendolen  was  perfectly  aware  that  her 
cousin  was  in  love  with  her ;  but  she  had  no  idea 
that  the  matter  was  of  any  consequence,  having 
never  had  the  slightest  visitation  of  painful  love 
herself.  She  wished  the  small  romance  of  Rex's 
devotion  to  fill  up  the  time  of  his  stay  at  Penni- 
cote,  and  to  avoid  explanations  which  would  bring 
it  to  an  untimely  end.  Besides,  she  objected, 
with  a  sort  of  physical  repulsion,  to  being  direct- 
ly made  love  to.  With  all  her  imaginative  delight 
in  being  adored,  there  was  a  certain  fierceness  of 
maidenhood  in  her. 

But  all  other  thoughts  were  soon  lost  for  her 
in  the  excitement  of  the  scene  at  the  Three  Barns. 
Several  gentlemen  of  the  hunt  knew  her,  and  she 
exchanged  pleasant  greetings.  Rex  could  not  get 
another  word  with  her.  The  color,  the  stir  of  the 
field,  had  taken  possession  of  Gwendolen  with  a 
strength  which  was  not  due  to  habitual  associa- 
tion, for  she  had  never  yet  ridden  after  the  hounds 
— only  said  she  should  like  to  do  it,  and  so  drawn 
forth  a  prohibition ;  her  mamma  dreading  the 
danger,  and  her  uncle  declaring  that  for  his  part 
he  held  that  kind  of  violent  exercise  unseemly  in 
a  woman,  and  that  whatever  might  be  done  in 
other  parts  of  the  country,  no  lady  of  good  posi- 
tion followed  the  Wessex  hunt :  no  one  but  Mrs. 
Gadsby,  the  yeomanry  captain's  wife,  who  had 
been  a  kitchen-maid  and  still  spoke  like  one. 
This  last  argument  had  some  effect  on  Gwen- 
dolen, and  had  kept  her  halting  between  her  de- 
sire to  assert  her  freedom  and  her  horror  of  being 
classed  with  Mrs.  Gadsby. 

Some  of  the  most  unexceptionable  women  in 
the  neighborhood  occasionally  went  to  see  the 
hounds  throw  off ;  but  it  happened  that  none  of 
them  were  present  this  morning  to  abstain  from 
following,  while  Mrs.  Gadsby,  with  her  doubtful 
antecedents,  grammatical  and  otherwise,  was  not 
visible  to  make  following  seem  unbecoming. 
Thus  Gwendolen  felt  no  check  on  the  animal 
stimulus  that  came  from  the  stir  and  tongue  of 
the  hounds,  the  pawing  of  the  horses,  the  varying 
voices  of  men,  the  movement  hither  and  thither 
of  vivid  color  on  the  background  of  green  and 
gray  stillness — that  utmost  excitement  of  the 
coming  chase  which  consists  in  feeling  some- 
thing like  a  combination  of  dog  and  horse,  with 
the  superadded  thrill  of  social  vanities  and  con- 
sciousness of  centaur-power  which  belong  to  hu- 
man kind. 

Rex  would  have  felt  more  of  the  same  enjoy- 
ment if  he  could  have  kept  nearer  to  Gwendolen, 
and  not  seen  her  constantly  occupied  with  ac- 
quaintances, or  looked  at  by  would-be  acquaint- 
ances, all  on  lively  horses  which  veered  about  and 
swept  the  surrounding  space  as  effectually  as  a 
revolving  lever. 

"  Glad  to  see  you  here  this  fine  morning,  Miss 
Harleth,"  said  Lord  Brackenshaw,  a  middle-aged 
peer  of  aristocratic  seediness,  in  stained  pink, 
with  easy-going  manners  which  would  have  made 
the  threatened  Deluge  seem  of  no  consequence. 
"We  shall  have  a  first-rate  run.  A  pity  you 
don't  go  with  us.  Have  you  ever  tried  your  little 
chestnut  at  a  ditch  ?  you  wouldn't  be  afraid,  eh  ?" 

"  Not  the  least  in  the  world,"  said  Gwendolen. 
And  this  was  true ;  she  was  never  fearful  in  ac- 


tion and  companionship.     "I  have  often  taken 
him  at  some  rails,  and  a  ditch  too,  near — " 

"  Ah,  by  Jove !"  said  bis  lordship,  quietly,  in 
notation  that  something  was  happening  which 
must  break  off  the  dialogue ;  and  as  he  reined 
off  his  horse,  Rex  was  bringing  his  sober  hackney 
up  to  Gwendolen's  side  when — the  hounds  gave 
tongue,  and  the  whole  field  was  in  motion  as  if 
the  whirl  of  the  earth  were  carrying  it ;  Gwen- 
dolen along  with  every  thing  else ;  no  word  of 
notice  to  Rex,  who,  without  a  second  thought,  fol- 
lowed too.  Could  he  let  Gwendolen  go  alone? 
Under  other  circumstances  he  would  have  enjoy- 
ed the  run,  but  he  was  just  now  perturbed  by  the 
check  which  had  been  put  on  the  impetus  to  ut- 
ter his  love,  and  get  utterance  in  return — an  im- 
petus which  could  not  at  once  resolve  itself  into 
a  totally  different  sort  of  chase,  at  least  with  the 
consciousness  of  being  on  his  father's  gray  nag, 
a  good  horse  enough  in  his  way,  but  of  sober 
years  and  ecclesiastical  habits.  Gwendolen  on 
her  spirited  little  che§tnut  was  up  with  the  best, 
and  felt  as  secure  as  an  immortal  goddess,  hav- 
ing, if  she  had  thought  of  risk,  a  core  of  confi- 
dence that  no  ill  luck  would  happen  to  her.  But 
she  thought  of  no  such  thing,  and  certainly  not 
of  any  risk  there  might  be  for  her  cousin.  If 
she  had  thought  of  him,  it  would  have  struck  her 
as  a  droll  picture  that  he  should  be  gradually  fall- 
ing behind,  and  looking  round  in  search  of  gates : 
a  fine  lithe  youth,  whose  heart  must  be  panting 
with  all  the  spirit  of  a  beagle,  stuck,  as  if  under 
a  wizard's  spell,  on  a  stiff  clerical  hackney,  would 
have  made  her  laugh  with  a  sense  of  fun  much 
too  strong  for  her  to  reflect  on  his  mortification. 
But  Gwendolen  was  apt  to  think  rather  of  those 
who  saw  her  than  of  those  whom  she  could  not 
see :  and  Rex  was  soon  so  far  behind  that  if  she 
had  looked  she  would  not  have  seen  him.  For  I 
grieve  to  say  that  in  the  search  for  a  gate,  along 
a  lane  lately  mended,  Primrose  fell,  broke  his 
knees,  and  undesignedly  threw  Rex  over  his 
head. 

Fortunately  a  blacksmith's  son  who  also  fol- 
lowed the  hounds  under  disadvantages,  namely, 
on  foot  (a  loose  way  of  hunting  which  had  struck 
some  even  frivolous  minds  as  immoral),  was  nat- 
urally also  in  the  rear,  and  happened  to  be  with- 
in sight  of  Rex's  misfortune.  He  ran  to  give 
help  which  was  greatly  needed,  for  Rex  was  a 
good  deal  stunned,  and  the  complete  recovery  of 
sensation  came  in  the  form  of  pain.  Joel  Dagge 
on  this  occasion  showed  himself  that  most  useful 
of  personages,  whose  knowledge  is  of  a  kind  suit- 
ed to  the  immediate  occasion :  he  not  only  knew 
perfectly  well  what  was  the  matter  with-  the 
horse,  how  far  they  were  both  from  the  nearest 
public-house  and  from  Pennicote  Rectory,  and 
could  certify  to  Rex  that  his  shoulder  was  only  a 
bit  out  of  joint,  but  also  offered  experienced  sur- 
gical aid. 

"  Lord,  Sir,  let  me  shove  it  in  again  for  you ! 
I's  see  Nash  the  bone-setter  do  it,  and  done  it  my: 
self  for  our  little  Sally  twice  over.  It's  all  one  and 
the  same,  shoulders  is.  If  5'ou'll  trusten  to  me 
nd  tighten  your  mind  up  a  bit,  I'll  do  it  for  you 
in  no  time." 

"  Come,  then,  old  fellow,"  said  Rex,  who  could 
tighten  his  mind  better  than  his  seat  in  the  sad- 
dle. And  Joel  managed  the  operation,  though 
not  without  considerable  expense  of  pain  to  his 
patient,  who  turned  so  pitiably  pale  while  tight- 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


ening  his  mind  that  Joel  remarked,  "Ah,  Sir, 
you  aren't  used  to  it,  that's  how  it  is.  I's  see 
lots  and  lots  o'  joints  out.  I  see  a  man  with  his 
eye  pushed  out  once — that  was  a  rum  go  as  ever 
I  see.  You  can't  have  a  bit  o'  fun  wi'out  such  a 
sort  o'  things.  But  it  went  in  again.  I's  swal- 
lowed three  teeth  mysen,  as  sure  as  I'm  alive. 
Now,  sirrey"  (this  was  addressed  to  Primrose), 
"  come  alonk — you  mustn't  make  believe  as  you 
can't." 

Joel  being  clearly  a  low  character,  it  is  happily 
not  necessary  to  say  more  of  him  to  the  refined 
reader  than  that  he  helped  Rex  to  get  home  with 
as  little  delay  as  possible.  There  was  no  alter- 
native but  to  get  home,  though  all  the  while  he 
was  in  anxiety  about  Gwendolen,  and  more  miser- 
able in  the  thought  that  she  too  might  have  had 
an  accident  than  in  the  pain  of  his  own  bruises 
and  the  annoyance  he  was  about  to  cause  his  fa- 
ther. He  comforted  himself  about  her  by  reflect- 
ing that  every  one  would  be  anxious  to  take  care 
of  her,  and  that  some  acquaintance  would  be  sure 
to  conduct  her  home. 

Mr.  Gascoigne  was  already  at  home,  and  was 
writing  letters  in  his  study,  when  he  was  inter- 
rupted by  seeing  poor  Rex  come  in  with  a  face 
which  was  not  the  less  handsome  and  ingratia- 
ting for  being  pale  and  a  little  distressed.  He 
was  secretly  the  favorite  son,  and  a  young  por- 
trait of  the  father,  who,  however,  never  treated 
him  with  any  partiality — rather  with  an  extra 
rigor.  Mr.  Gascoigne  having  inquired  of  Anna, 
knew  that  Rex  had  gone  with  Gwendolen  to  the 
meet  at  the  Three  Barns. 

"  What's  the  matter  ?"  he  said,  hastily,  not  lay- 
ing down  his  pen. 

"  I'm  very  sorry,  Sir ;  Primrose  has  fallen  down 
and  broken  his  knees." 

"Where  have  you  been  with  him?"  said  Mr. 
Gascoigne,  with  a  touch  of  severity.  He  rarely 
gave  way  to  temper. 

"  To  the  Three  Barns  to  see  the  hounds  throw 
off." 

"  And  you  were  fool  enough  to  follow  ?" 

"  Yes,  Sir.  I  didn't  go  at  any  fences,  but  the 
horse  got  his  leg  into  a  hole." 

"And  you  got  hurt  yourself,  I  hope,  eh ?" 

"  I  got  my  shoulder  put  out,  but  a  young  black- 
smith put  it  in  again  for  me.  I'm  just  a  little 
battered,  that's  all." 

"  Well,  sit  down." 

"  I'm  very  sorry  about  the  horse,  Sir.  I  knew 
it  would  be  a  vexation  to  you." 

"And  what  has  become  of  Gwendolen?"  said 
Mr.  Gascoigne,  abruptly.  Rex,  who  did  not  im- 
agine that  his  father  had  made  any  inquiries 
ubout  him,  answered  at  first  with  a  blush  which 
was  the  more  remarkable  for  his  previous  pale- 
ness. Then  he  said,  nervously : 

"  I  am  anxious  to  know — I  should  like  to  go 
or  send  at  once  to  Offendene — but  she  rides  so 
well,  and  I  think  she  would  keep  up — there  would 
most  likely  be  many  round  her." 

"  I  suppose  it  was  she  who  led  you  on,  eh  ?" 
said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  laying  down  his  pen,  leaning 
back  in  his  chair,  and  looking  at  Rex  with  more 
marked  examination. 

"It  was  natural  for  her  to  want  to  go;  she 
didn't  intend  it  beforehand — she  was  led  away 
by  the  spirit  of  the  thing.  And  of  course  I  went 
when  she  went." 

Mr.  Gascoigne  left  a  brief  interval  of  silence, 


and  then  said,  with  quiet  irony,  "  But  now  you 
observe,  young  gentleman,  that  you  are  not  fur- 
nished with  a  horse  which  will  enable  you  to  play 
the  squire  to  your  cousin.  You  must  give  up  that 
amusement.  You  have  spoiled  my  nag  for  me, 
and  that  is  enough  mischief  for  one  vacation.  I 
shall  beg  you  to  get  ready  to  start  for  Southamp- 
ton to-morrow  and  join  Stillfox,  till  you  go  up  to 
.Oxford  with  him.  That  will  be  good  for  your 
bruises  as  well  as  your  studies." 

Poor  Rex  felt  his  heart  swelling  and  comport- 
ing itself  as  if  it  had  been  no  better  than  a  girl's. 

"  I  hope  you  will  not  insist  on  my  going  imme- 
diately, Sir." 

"  Do  you  feel  too  ill  ?" 

"  No,  not  that— but — "  Here  Rex  bit  his  lips, 
and  felt  the  tears  starting,  to  his  great  vexation ; 
then  he  rallied  and  tried  to  say  more  firmly,  "  I 
want  to  go  to  Offendene — but  I  can  go  this 
evening." 

"  I  am  going  there  myself.  I  can  bring  word 
about  Gwendolen,  if  that  is  what  you  want." 

Rex  broke  down.  He  thought  he  discerned  an 
intention  fatal  to  his  happiness,  nay,  his  life.  He 
was  accustomed  to  believe  in  his  father's  pene- 
tration, and  to  expect  firmness.  "  Father,  I  can't 
go  away  without  telling  her  that  I  love  her,  and 
knowing  that  she  loves  me." 

Mr.  Gascoigne  was  inwardly  going  through 
some  self-rebuke  for  not  being  more  wary,  and 
was  now  really  sorry  for  the  lad ;  but  every  con- 
sideration was  subordinate  to  that  of  using  the 
wisest  tactics  in  the  case.  He  had  quickly  made 
up  his  mind,  and  could  answer  the  more  quietly : 

"  My  dear  boy,  you  are  too  young  to  be  taking 
momentous,  decisive  steps  of  that  sort.  This  is  a 
fancy  which  you  have  got  into  your  head  during 
an  idle  week  or  two :  you  must  set  to  work  at 
something  and  dismiss  it.  There  is  every  reason 
against  it.  An  engagement  at  your  age  would 
be  totally  rash  and  unjustifiable ;  and,  moreover, 
alliances  between  first  cousins  are  undesirable. 
Make  up  your  mind  to  a  brief  disappointment. 
Life  is  full  of  them.  We  have  all  got  to  be 
broken  in ;  and  this  is  a  mild  beginning  for  you." 

"No,  not  mild.  I  can't  bear  it.  I  shall  be 
good  for  nothing.  I  shouldn't  mind  any  thing,  if 
it  were  settled  between  us.  I  could  do  any  thing 
then,"  said  Rex,  impetuously.  "  But  it's  of  no 
use  to  pretend  that  I  will  obey  you.  I  can't  do  it. 
If  I  said  I  would,  I  should  be  sure  to  break  my 
word.  I  should  see  Gwendolen  again." 

"Well,  wait  till  to-morrow  morning,  that  we 
may  talk  of  the  matter  again — you  will  promise 
me  that,"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  quietly ;  and  Rex 
did  not,  could  not,  refuse. 

The  Rector  did  not  even  tell  his  wife  that  he 
had  any  other  reason  for  going  to  Offendene  that 
evening  than  his  desire  to  ascertain  that  Gwen- 
dolen had  got  home  safely.  He  found  her  more 
than  safe — elated.  Mr.  Quallon,  who  had  won 
the  brush,  had  delivered  the  trophy  to  her,  and 
she  had  brought  it  before  her,  fastened  on  the 
saddle ;  more  than  that,  Lord  Brackcnshaw  had 
conducted  her  home,  and  had  shown  himself  de- 
lighted with  her  spirited  riding.  All  this  was 
told  at  once  to  her  uncle,  that  he  might  sec  how 
well  justified  she  had  been  in  acting  against  his 
advice ;  and  the  prudential  Rector  did  feel  him- 
self in  a  slight  difficulty,  for  at  that  moment  he 
was  particularly  sensible  that  it  was  his  niece's 
serious  interest  to  be  well  regarded  by  the  Brack- 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


27 


cnshaws,  and  their  opinion  as  to  her  following 
the  hounds  really  touched  the  essence  of  his  ob- 
jection. However,  he  was  not  obliged  to  say  any 
thing  immediately,  for  Mrs.  Davilow  followed  up 
Gwendolen's  brief  triumphant  phrases  with, 

"Still,  I  do  hope  you  will  not  do  it  again, 
Gwendolen.  I  should  never  have  a  moment's 
quiet.  Her  father  died  by  an  accident,  you 
know." 

Here  Mrs.  Davilow  had  turned  away  from 
Gwendolen,  and  looked  at  Mr.  Gascoigne. 

"  Mamma  dear,"  said  Gwendolen,  kissing  her 
merrily,  and  passing  over  the  question  of  the 
fears  which  Mrs.  Davilow  had  meant  to  account 
for,  "children  don't  take  after  their  parents  hi 
broken  legs." 

Not  one  word  had  yet  been  said  about  Rex. 
In  fact  there  had  been  no  anxiety  about  him  at 
Offendene.  Gwendolen  had  observed  to  her 
mamma,  "Oh,  he  must  have  been  left  far  be- 
hind, and  gone  home  in  despair,"  and  it  could 
not  be  denied  that  this  was  fortunate  so  far  as  it 
made  way  for  Lord  Brackenshaw's  bringing  her 
home.  But  now  Mr.  Gascoigne  said,  with  some 
emphasis,  looking  at  Gwendolen, 

"Well,  the  exploit  has  ended  better  for  you 
than  for  Rex." 

"Yes,  I  dare  say  he  had  to  make  a  terrible 
round.  You  have  not  taught  Primrose  to  take 
the  fences,  uncle,"  said  Gwendolen,  without  the 
faintest  shade  of  alarm  in  her  looks  and  tone. 

"  Rex  has  had  a  fall,"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  curt- 
ly, throwing  himself  into  an  arm-chair,  resting 
his  elbows  and  fitting  his  palms  and  fingers  to- 
gether, while  he  closed  his  lips  and  looked  at 
Gwendolen,  who  said, 

"Oh,  poor  fellow!  he  is  not  hurt,  I  hope?" 
with  a  correct  look  of  anxiety,  such  as  elated 
mortals  try  to  superinduce  when  their  pulses  are 
all  the  while  quick  with  triumph ;  and  Mrs. 
Davilow,  in  the  same  moment,  uttered  a  low 
"  Good  heavens  !  There !"  , 

Mr.  Gascoigne  went  on :  "  He  put  his  shoulder 
out,  and  got  some  bruises,  I  believe."  Here  he 
made  another  little  pause  of  observation;  but 
Gwendolen,  instead  of  any  such  symptoms  as 
pallor  and  silence,  had  only  deepened  the  com- 
passionateness  of  her  brow  and  eyes,  and  said 
again,  "Oh,  poor  fellow!  it  is  nothing  serious, 
then?"  and  Mr.  Gascoigne  held  his  diagnosis 
complete.  But  he  wished  to  make  assurance 
doubly  sure,  and  went  on  still  with  a  purpose : 

"  He  got  his  arm  set  again  rather  oddly.  Some 
blacksmith — not  a  parishioner  of  mine-^— was  on 
the  field — a  loose  fish,  I  suppose,  but  handy,  and 
set  the  arm  for  him  immediately.  So,  after  all, 
I  believe,  I  and  Primrose  come  off  worst.  The 
horse's  knees  are  cut  to  pieces.  He  came  down 
in  a  hole,  it  seems,  and  pitched  Rex  over  his  head." 

Gwendolen's  face  had  allowably  become  con- 
tented again  since  Rex's  arm  had  been  reset; 
and  now,  at  the  descriptive  suggestions  in  the 
latter  part  of  her  uncle's  speech,  her  elated  spir- 
its made  her  features  less  manageable  than  usu- 
al ;  the  smiles  broke  forth,  and  finally  a  descend- 
ing scale  of  laughter. 

"You  are  a  pretty  young  lady— to  laugh  at 
other  people's  calamities',"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne, 
with  a  milder  sense  of  disapprobation  than  if  he 
had  not  had  counteracting  reasons  to  be  glad 
that  Gwendolen  showed  no  deep  feeling  on  the 
occasion. 


"  Pray  forgive  me,  uncle.  Now  Rex  is  safe,  it 
is  so  droll  to  fancy  the  figure  he  and  Primrose 
would  cut — in  a  lane  all  by  themselves— only  a 
blacksmith  running  up.  It  would  make  a  capi- 
tal caricature  of  '  Following  the  hounds.'  " 

Gwendolen  rather  valued  herself  on  her  supe- 
rior freedom  in  laughing  where  others  might  only 
see  matter  for  seriousness.  Indeed,  the  laughter 
became  her  person  so  well  that  her  opinion  of  its 
gracefulness  was  often  shared  by  others ;  and  it 
even  entered  into  her  uncle's  course  of  thought 
at  this  moment  that  it  was  no  wonder  a  boy 
should  be  fascinated  by  this  young  witch — who, 
however,  was  more  mischievous  than  could  be 
desired. 

"  How  can  you  laugh  at  broken  bones,  child  ?" 
said  Mrs.  Davilow,  still  under  her  dominant  anx- 
iety. "  I  wish  we  had  never  allowed  you  to  have 
the  horse.  You  will  see  that  we  were  wrong," 
she  added,  looking  with  a  grave  nod  at  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne— "  at  least  I  was,  to  encourage  her  in  ask- 
ing for  it." 

"Yes,  seriously,  Gwendolen,"  said  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne, in  a  judicious  tone  of  rational  advice  to  a 
person  understood  to  be  altogether  rational,  "  I 
strongly  recommend  you — I  shall  ask  you  to 
oblige  me  so  far — not  to  repeat  your  adventure 
to-day.  Lord  Brackenshaw  is  very  kind,  but  I 
feel  sure  that  he  would  concur  with  me  in  what  I 
say.  To  be  spoken  of  as  the  young  lady  who  hunts 
by  way  of  exception  would  give  a  tone  to  the 
language  about  you  which  I  am  sure  you  would 
not  like.  Depend  upon  it,  his  lordship  would 
not  choose  that  Lady  Beatrice  or  Lady  Maria 
should  hunt  in  this  part  of  the  country,  if  they 
were  old  enough  to  do  so.  When  you  are  mar- 
ried, it  will  be  different :  you  may  do  whatever 
your  husband  sanctions.  But  if  you  intend  to 
hunt,  you  must  marry  a  man  who  can  keep 
horses." 

"  I  don't  know  why  I  should  do  any  thing  so 
horrible  as  to  marry  without  that  prospect  at 
least,"  said  Gwendolen,  pettishly.  Her  uncle's 
speech  had  given  her  annoyance,  which  she  could 
not  show  more  directly;  but  she  felt  that  she 
was  committing  herself,  and  after  moving  care- 
lessly to  another  part  of  the  room,  went  out. 

"  She  always  speaks  in  that  way  about  mar- 
riage," said  Mrs.  Davilow ;  "  but  it  will  be  differ- 
ent when  she  has  seen  the  right  person." 

"  Her  heart  has  never  been  in  the  least  touch- 
ed, that  you  know  of  ?"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne. 

Mrs.  Davilow  shook  her  head  silently.  "It 
was  only  last  night  she  said  to  me, '  Mamma,  I 
wonder  how  girls  manage  to  fall  in  love.  It  is 
easy  to  make  them  do  it  in  books.  But  men  are 
too  ridiculous.' " 

Mr.  Gascoigne  laughed  a  little,  and  made  no 
further  remark  on  the  subject.  The  next  morn- 
ing at  breakfast  he  said, 

"  How  are  your  bruises,  Rex  ?" 

"  Oh,  not  very  mellow  yet,  Sir ;  only  beginning 
to  turn  a  little." 

"  You  don't  feel  quite  ready  for  a  journey  to 
Southampton  ?" 

Not  quite,"  answered  Rex,  with  his  heart  met- 
aphorically in  his  mouth. 

"  Well,  you  can  wait  till  to-morrow,  and  go  to 
say  good-by  to  them  at  Offendene." 

Mrs.  Gascoigne,  who  now  knew  the  whole  affair, 
looked  steadily  at  her  coffee  lest  she  also  should 
begin  to  cry,  as  Anna  was  doing  already. 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Mr.  Gascoigne  felt  that  he  was  applying  a  sharp 
remedy  to  poor  Rex's  acute  attack,  but  he  believed 
it  to  be  in  the  end  the  kindest.  To  let  him  know 
the  hopelessness  of  his  love  from  Gwendolen's 
own  lips  might  be  curative  hi  more  ways  than 
one. 

"  I  can  only  be  thankful  that  she  doesn't  care 
about  him,"  said  Mrs.  Gascoigne,  when  she  join- 
ed her  husband  in  his  study.  "  There  are  things 
in  Gwendolen  I  can  not  reconcile  myself  to.  My 
Anna  is  worth  two  of  her,  with  all  her  beauty 
and  talent.  It  looks  so  very  ill  in  her  that  she 
will  not  help  in  the  schools  with  Anna — not  even 
hi  the  Sunday-school.  What  you  or  I  advise  is 
of  no  consequence  to  her ;  and  poor  Fanny  is  com- 
pletely under  her  thumb.  But  I  know  you  think 
better  of  her,"  Mrs.  Gascoigne  ended,  with  a  def- 
erential hesitation. 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  there  is  no  harm  in  the  girl.  It 
is  only  that  she  has  a  high  spirit,  and  it  will  not 
do  to  hold  the  reins  too  tight.  The  point  is,  to  get 
her  well  married.  She  has  a  little  too  much  fire 
in  her  for  her  present  life  with  her  mother  and 
sisters.  It  is  natural  and  right  that  she  should  be 
married  soon — not  to  a  poor  man,  but  one  who 
can  give  her  a  fitting  position." 

Presently  Rex,  with  his  arm  in  a  sling,  was  on 
his  two  miles'  walk  to  Offendene.  He  was  rath- 
er puzzled  by  the  unconditional  permission  to  see 
Gwendolen,  but  his  father's  real  ground  of  action 
could  not  enter  into  his  conjectures.  If  it  had, 
he  would  first  have  thought  it  horribly  cold- 
blooded, and  then  have  disbelieved  in  his  father's 
conclusions. 

When  he  got  to  the  house,  every  body  was  there 
but  Gwendolen.  The  four  girls,  hearing  him  speak 
in  the  hall,  rushed  out  of  the  library,  which  was 
their  school-room,  and  hung  round  him  with  com- 
passionate inquiries  about  his  arm.  Mrs.  Davilow 
wanted  to  know  exactly  what  had  happened,  and 
where  the  blacksmith  lived,  that  she  might  make 
him  a  present ;  while  Miss  Merry,  who  took  a  sub- 
dued and  melancholy  part  hi  all  family  affairs, 
doubted  whether  it  would  not  be  giving  too  much 
encouragement  to  that  kind  of  character.  Rex 
had  never  found  the  family  troublesome  before, 
but  just  now  he  wished  them  all  away  and  Gwendo- 
len there,  and  he  was  too  uneasy  for  good-natured 
feigning.  When  at  last  he  had  said,  "  Where  is 
Gwendolen?"  and  Mrs.  Davilow  had  told  Alice  to 
go  and  see  if  her  sister  were  come  down,  adding, 
"  I  sent  up  her  breakfast  this  morning :  she  need- 
ed a  long  rest,"  Rex  took  the  shortest  way  out 
of  his  endurance  by  saying,  almost  impatiently, 
'  Aunt,  I  want  to  speak  to  Gwendolen — I  want  to 
see  her  alone." 

"  Very  well,  dear ;  go  into  the  drawing-room. 
I  will  send  her  there,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  who  had 
observed  that  he  was  fond  of  being  with  Gwen- 
dolen, as  was  natural,  but  had  not  thought  of  this 
as  having  any  bearing  on  the  realities  of  life  :  it 
seemed  merely  part  of  the  Christmas  holidays 
which  were  spinning  themselves  out. 

Rex  for  his  part  felt  that  the  realities  of  life 
were  all  hanging  on  this  interview.  He  had  to 
walk  up  and  down  the  drawing-room  in  expecta- 
tion for  nearly  ten  minutes — ample  space  for  all 
imaginative  fluctuations ;  yet,  strange  to  say,  he 
was  unvaryingly  occupied  in  thinking  what  and 
how  much  he  could  do,  when  Gwendolen  had  ac- 
cepted him,  to  satisfy  his  father  that  the  engage- 
ment was  the  most  prudent  thing  in  the  world, 


since  it  inspired  him  with  double  energy  for  work. 
He  was  to  be  a  lawyer,  and  what  reason  was  there 
why  he  should  not  rise  as  high  as  Eldon  did  ? 
He  was  forced  to  look  at  life  hi  the  light  of  his 
father's  mind. 

But  when  the  door  opened,  and  she  whose  pres- 
ence he  was  longing  for  entered,  there  came  over 
him  suddenly  and  mysteriously  a  state  of  tremor 
and  distrust  which  he  had  never  felt  before. 
Miss  Gwendolen,  simple  as  she  stood  there,  in  her 
black  silk,  cut  square  about  the  round  white  pil- 
lar of  her  throat,  a  black  band  fastening  her  hair, 
which  streamed  backward  in  smooth  silky  abun- 
dance, seemed  more  queenly  than  usual.  Perhaps 
it  was  that  there  was  none  of  the  latent  fun  and 
tricksiness  which  had  always  pierced  in  her  greet- 
ing of  Rex.  How  much  of  this  was  due  to  her 
presentiment  from  what  he  had  said  yesterday 
that  he  was  going  to  talk  of  love  ?  How  much 
from  her  desire  to  show  regret  about  his  acci- 
dent ?  Something  of  both.  But  the  wisdom  of 
ages  has  hinted  that  there  is  a  side  of  the  bed 
which  has  a  malign  influence  if  you  happen  to 
get  out  on  it ;  and  this  accident  befalls  some 
charming  persons  rather  frequently.  Perhaps  it 
had  befallen  Gwendolen  this  morning.  The  hast- 
ening of  her  toilet,  the  way  in  which  Bugle  used 
the  brush,  the  quality  of  the  shilling  serial  mis- 
takenly written  for  her  amusement,  the  probabil- 
ities of  the  coming  day,  and,  in  short,  social  insti- 
tutions generally,  were  all  objectionable  to  her. 
It  was  not  that  she  was  out  of  temper,  but  that 
the  world  was  not  equal  to  the  demands  of  her 
fine  organism. 

However  it  might  be,  Rex  saw  an  awful  majesty 
about  her  as  she  entered  and  put  out  her  hand  to 
him,  without  the  least  approach  to  a  smile  in  eyes 
or  mouth.  The  fun  which  had  moved  her  in  the 
evening  had  quite  evaporated  from  the  image  of 
his  accident,  and  the  whole  affair  seemed  stupid 
to  her.  But  she  said,  with  perfect  propriety,  "  I 
hope  you  are  not  much  hurt,  Rex  ;  I  deserve  that 
you  should  reproach  me  for  your  accident." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  Rex,  feeling  the  soul  within 
him  spreading  itself  like  an  attack  of  illness. 
"  There  is  hardly  any  thing  the  matter  with  me. 
I  am  so  glad  you  had  the  pleasure :  I  would  will- 
ingly pay  for  it  by  a  tumble,  only  I  was  sorry  to 
break  the  horse's  knees." 

Gwendolen  walked  to  the  hearth  and  stood 
looking  at  the  fire  in  the  most  inconvenient  way 
for  conversation,  so  that  he  could  only  get  a  side 
view  of  her  face. 

"  My  father  wants  me  to  go  to  Southampton 
for  the  rest  of  the  vacation,"  said  Rex,  his  bary- 
tone trembling  a  little. 

"  Southampton !  That's  a  stupid  place  to  go 
to,  isn't  it?"  said  Gwendolen,  chillingly. 

"  It  would  be  to  me,  because  you  would  not  be 
there." 

Silence. 

"  Should  you  mind  about  my  going  away,  Gwen- 
dolen?" 

"Of  course.  Every  one  is  of  consequence 
in  this  dreary  country,"  said  Gwendolen,  curtly. 
The  perception  that  poor  Rex  wanted  to  be  ten- 
der made  her  curl  up_  and  harden  like  a  sea- 
anemone  at  the  touch  o'f  a  finger. 

"  Are  you  angry  with  me,  Gwendolen  ?  Why 
do  you  treat  me  in  this  way  all  at  once  ?"  said 
Rex,  flushing,  and  with  more  spirit  in  his  voice, 
as  if  he,  too,  were  capable  of  being  angry. 


BOOK  I— THE   SPOILED  CHILD. 


Gwendolen  looked  round  at  him  and  smiled. 
"  Treat  you  ?  Nonsense !  I  am  only  rather  cross. 
Why  did  you  come  so  very  early  ?  You  must  ex- 
pect to  find  tempers  in  dishabille." 

"  Be  as  cross  with  me  as  you  like—only  don't 
treat  me  with  indifference,"  said  Rex,  imploring- 
ly. "All  the  happiness  of  my  life  depends  on 
your  loving  me — if  only  a  little — better  than  any 
one  else." 

He  tried  to  take  her  hand,  but  she  hastily 
eluded  his  grasp,  and  moved  to  the  other  end  of 
the  hearth,  facing  him. 

"Pray  don't  make  love  to  me!  I  hate  it." 
She  looked  at  him  fiercely. 

Rex  turned  pale  and  was  silent,  but  could  not 
take  his  eyes  off  her,  and  the  impetus  was  not 
yet  exhausted  that  made  hers  dart  death  at  him. 
Gwendolen  herself  could  not  have  foreseen  that 
she  should  feel  in  this  way.  It  was  all  a  sudden 
new  experience  to  her.  The  day  before  she  had 
been  quite  aware  that  her  cousin  was  in  love  with 
her — she  did  not  mind  how  much,  so  that  he  said 
nothing  about  it ;  and  if  any  one  had  asked  her 
why  she  objected  to  love-making  speeches,  she 
would  have  said,  laughingly,  "  Oh,  I  am  tired  of 
them  all  in  the  books."  But  now  the  life  of  pas- 
sion had  begun  negatively  in  her.  She  felt  pas- 
sionately averse  to  this  volunteered  love. 

To  Rex  at  twenty  the  joy  of  life  seemed  at  an 
end  more  absolutely  than  it  can  do  to  a  man  at 
forty.  But  before  they  had  ceased  to  look  at 
each  other,  he  did  speak  again  : 

"  Is  that  the  last  word  you  have  to  say  to  me, 
Gwendolen  ?  Will  it  always  be  so  ?" 

She  could  not  help  seeing  his  wretchedness 
and  feeling  a  little  regret  for  the  old  Rex  who 
had  not  offended  her.  Decisively,  but  yet  with 
some  return  of  kindliness,  she  said, 

"About  making  love  ?  Yes.  But  I  don't  dis- 
like you  for  any  thing  else." 

There  was  just  a  perceptible  pause  before  he 
said  a  low  "Good -by,"  and  passed  out  of  the 
room.  Almost  immediately  after,  she  heard  the 
heavy  hall  door  bang  behind  him. 

Mrs.  Davilow,  too,  had  heard  Rex's  hasty  de- 
parture, and  presently  came  into  the  drawing- 
room,  where  she  found  Gwendolen  seated  on  the 
low  couch,  her  face  buried,  and  her  hair  falling 
over  her  figure  like  a  garment.  She  was  sobbing 
bitterly.  "  My  child,  my  child,  what  is  it  ?"  cried 
the  mother,  who  had  never  before  seen  her  dar- 
ling struck  down  in  this  way,  and  felt  something 
of  the  alarmed  anguish  that  women  feel  at  the 
sight  of  overpowering  sorrow  in  a  strong  man ; 
for  this  child  had  been  her  ruler.  Sitting  down 
by  her  with  circling  arms,  she  pressed  her  cheek 
against  Gwendolen's  head,  and  then  tried  to  draw 
it  upward.  Gwendolen  gave  way,  and  letting  her 
head  rest  against  her  mother,  cried  out,  sobbing- 
ly,  "  Oh,  mamma,  what  can  become  of  my  life  ? 
there  is  nothing  worth  living  for." 

"  Why,  dear  ?"  said  Mrs.  Davilow.  Usually  she 
herself  had  been  rebuked  by  her  daughter  for  in- 
voluntary signs  of  despair. 

"I  shall  never  love  any  body.  I  can't  love 
people.  I  hate  them." 

"  The  time  will  come,  dear,  the  tune  will  come." 

Gwendolen  was  more  and  more  convulsed  with 
sobbing ;  but  putting  her  arms  round  her  moth- 
er's neck  with  an  almost  painful  clinging,  she 
said,  brokenly,  "  I  can't  bear  any  one  to  be  very 
near  me  but  you." 


Then  the  mother  began  to  sob,  for  this  spoiled 
child  had  never  shown  such  dependence  on  her 
before :  and  so  they  clung  to  each  other. 


CHAPTER  Vin. 

What  name  doth  Joy  most  borrow 
When  life  is  fair? 

"To-morrow." 

What  name  doth  best  fit  Sorrow 
lu  young  despair? 

"  To-morrow." 

THERE  was  a  much  more  lasting  trouble  at  the 
Rectory.  Rex  arrived  there  only  to  throw  him- 
self on  his  bed  in  a  state  of  apparent  apathy,  un- 
broken till  the  next  day,  when  it  began  to  be  in- 
terrupted by  more  positive  signs  of  illness.  Noth- 
ing could  be  said  about  his  going  to  Southamp- 
ton: instead  of  that,  the  chief  thought  of  his 
mother  and  Anna  was  how  to  tend  this  patient 
who  did  not  want  to  be  well,  and  from  being  the 
brightest,  most  grateful  spirit  in  the  household, 
was  metamorphosed  into  an  irresponsive,  dull- 
eyed  creature  who  met  all  affectionate  attempts 
with  a  murmur  of  "  Let  me  alone."  His  father 
looked  beyond  the  crisis,  and  believed  it  to  be  the 
shortest  way  out  of  an  unlucky  affair ;  but  he  was 
sorry  for  the  inevitable  suffering,  and  went  now 
and  then  to  sit  by  him  in  silence  for  a  few  min- 
utes, parting  with  a  gentle  pressure  of  his  hand 
on  Rex's  blank  brow,  and  a  "  God  bless  you,  my 
boy."  Warham  and  the  younger  children  used 
to  peep  round  the  edge  of  the  door  to  see  this  in- 
credible thing  of  their  lively  brother  being  laid 
low;  but  fingers  were  immediately  shaken  at 
them  to  drive  them  back.  The  guardian  who 
was  always  there  was  Anna,  and  her  little  hand 
was  allowed  to  rest  within  her  brother's,  though 
he  never  gave  it  a  welcoming  pressure.  Her  soul 
was  divided  between  anguish  for  Rex  and  re- 
proach of  Gwendolen. 

"Perhaps  it  is  wicked  of  me,  but  I  think  I 
never  can  love  her  again,"  came  as  the  recurrent 
burden  of  poor  little  Anna's  inward  monody. 
And  even  Mrs.  Gascoigne  had  an  angry  feeling 
toward  her  niece  which  she  could  not  refrain 
from  expressing  (apologetically)  to  her  husband. 

"  I  know,  of  course,  it  is  better,  and  we  ought 
to  be  thankful  that  she  is  not  in  love  with  the 
poor  boy ;  but  really,  Henry,  I  think  she  is  hard : 
she  has  the  heart  of  a  coquette.  I  can  not  help 
thinking  that  she  must  have  made  him  believe 
something,  or  the  disappointment  would  not  have 
taken  hold  of  him  in  that  way.  And  some  blame 
attaches  to  poor  Fanny ;  she  is  quite  blind  about 
that  girl." 

Mr.  Gascoigne  answered  imperatively.  "  The 
less  said  on  that  point  the  better,  Nancy.  I 
ought  to  have  been  more  awake  myself.  As  to 
the  boy,  be  thankful  if  nothing  worse  ever  hap- 
pens to  him.  Let  the  thing  die  out  as  quickly 
as  possible ;  and  especially  with  regard  to  Gwen- 
dolen— let  it  be  as  if  it  had  never  been." 

The  Rector's  dominant  feeling  was  that  there 
had  been  a  great  escape.  Gwendolen  in  love  with 
Rex  in  return  would  have  made  a  much  harder 
problem,  the  solution  of  which  might  have  been 
taken  out  of  his  hands.  But  he  had  to  go  through 
some  further  difficulty. 

One  fine  morning  Rex  asked  for  his  bath,  and 
made  his  toilet  as  usual.  Anna,  full  of  excite- 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


ment  at  this  change,  could  do  nothing  but  listen 
for  his  coming  down,  and  at  last  hearing  his  step, 
ran  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs  to  meet  him.  For 
the  first  time  he  gave  her  a  faint  smile,  but  it 
looked  so  melancholy  on  his  pale  face  that  she 
could  hardly  help  crying. 

"  Nannie !"  he  said,  gently,  taking  her  hand 
and  leading  her  slowly  along  with  him  to  the 
drawing-room.  His  mother  was  there,  and  when 
she  came  to  kiss  him,  he  said,  "  What  a  plague 
I  am !" 

Then  he  sat  still  and  looked  out  of  the  bow- 
window  on  the  lawn  and  shrubs  covered  with 
hoar-frost,  across  which  the  sun  was  sending  faint 
occasional  gleams — something  like  that  sad  smile 
on  Rex's  face,  Anna  thought.  He  felt  as  if  he 
had  had  a  resurrection  into  a  new  world,  and 
did  not  know  what  to  do  with  himself  there,  the 
old  interests  being  left  behind.  Anna  sat  near 
him,  pretending  to  work,  but  really  watching  him 
with  yearning  looks.  Beyond  the  garden  hedge 
there  was  a  road  where  wagons  and  carts  some- 
times went  on  field-work ;  a  railed  opening  was 
made  in  the  hedge,  because  the  upland  with  its 
bordering  wood  and  clump  of  ash-trees  against 
the  sky  was  a  pretty  sight.  Presently  there  came 
along  a  wagon  laden  with  timber;  the  horses 
were  straining  their  grand  muscles,  and  the  driver, 
having  cracked  his  whip,  ran  along  anxiously  to 
guide  the  leader's  head,  fearing  a  swerve.  Rex 
seemed  to  be  shaken  into  attention,  rose  and  look- 
ed till  the  last  quivering  trunk  of  the  timber  had 
disappeared,  and  then  walked  once  or  twice  along 
the  room.  Mrs.  Gascoigne  was  no  longer  there, 
and  when  he  came  to  sit  down  again,  Anna,  see- 
ing a  return  of  speech  in  her  brother's  eyes,  could 
not  resist  the  impulse  to  bring  a  little  stool  and 
seat  herself  against  his  knee,  looking  up  at  him 
with  an  expression  which  seemed  to  say, "  Do 
speak  to  me."  And  he  spoke : 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  I  am  thinking  of,  Nannie. 
I  will  go  to  Canada,  or  somewhere  of  that  sort." 
(Rex  had  not  studied  the  character  of  our  colo- 
nial possessions.) 

"  Oh,  Rex,  not  for  always !" 

"  Yes ;  to  get  my  bread  there.  I  should  like 
to  build  a  hut,  and  work  hard  at  clearing,  and 
have  every  thing  wild  about  me,  and  a  great  wide 
quiet." 

"And  not  take  me  with  you?"  said  Anna,  the 
big  tears  coming  fast. 

"How  could  I?" 

"  I  should  like  it  better  than  any  thing ;  and 
settlers  go  with  their  families.  I  would  soon- 
er go  there  than  stay  here  in  England.  I  could 
make  the  fires,  and  mend  the  clothes,  and  cook 
the  food ;  and  I  could  learn  to  make  the  bread 
before  we  went.  It  would  be  nicer  than  any 
thing — like  playing  at  life  over  again,  as  we  used 
to  do  when  we  made  our  tent  with  the  drugget, 
and  had  our  little  plates  and  dishes." 

"  Father  and  mother  would  not  let  you  go." 

"  Yes,  I  think  they  would,  when  I  explained 
every  thing.  It  would  save  money;  and  papa 
would  have  more  to  bring  up  the  boys  with." 

There  was  further  talk  of  the  same  practical 
kind  at  intervals,  and  it  ended  in  Rex's  being 
obliged  to  consent  that  Anna  should  go  with  him 
when  he  spoke  to  his  father  on  the  subject. 

Of  course  it  was  when  the  Rector  was  alone  in 
his  study.  Their  mother  would  become  recon- 
ciled to  whatever  he  decided  on ;  bat  mentioned 


to  her  first,  the  question  would  have  distressed 
her. 

"  Well,  my  children !"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  cheer- 
fully, as  they  entered.  It  was  a  comfort  to  see 
Rex  about  again. 

"  May  we  sit  down  with  you  a  little,  papa  ?" 
said  Anna.  "  Rex  has  something  to  say." 

"  With  all  my  heart." 

It  was  a  noticeable  group  that  these  three 
creatures  made,  each  of  them  with  a  face  of  the 
same  structural  type — the  straight  brow,  the  nose 
suddenly  straightened  from  an  intention  of  being 
aquiline,  the  short  upper  lip,  the  short  but  strong 
and  well-hung  chin:  there  was  even  the  same 
tone  of  complexion  and  set  of  the  eye.  The  gray- 
haired  father  was  at  once  massive  and  keen-look- 
ing ;  there  was  a  perpendicular  line  in  his  brow 
which  when  he  spoke  with  any  force  of  interest 
deepened ;  and  the  habit  of  ruling  gave  him  an 
air  of  reserved  authoritativeness.  Rex  would 
have  seemed  a  vision  of  the  father's  youth,  if  it 
had  been  possible  to  imagine  Mr.  Gascoigne  with- 
out distinct  plans  and  without  command,  smitten 
with  a  heart-sorrow,  and  having  no  more  notion 
of  concealment  than  a  sick  animal ;  and  Anna 
was  a  tiny  copy  of  Rex,  with  hair  drawn  back 
and  knotted,  her  face  following  his  in  its  changes 
of  expression,  as  if  they  had  one  soul  between 
them. 

"  You  know  all  about  what  has  upset  me,  fa- 
ther," Rex  began,  and  Mr.  Gascoigne  nodded. 

"  I  am  quite  done  up  for  life  in  this  part  of  the 
world.  I  am  sure  it  will  be  no  use  my  going 
back  to  Oxford.  I  couldn't  do  any  reading.  I 
should  fail,  and  cause  you  expense  for  nothing. 
I  want  to  have  your  consent  to  take  another 
course,  Sir." 

Mr.  Gascoigne  nodded  more  slowly,  the  perpen- 
dicular line  on  his  brow  deepened,  and  Anna's 
trembling  increased. 

"  If  you  would  allow  me  a  small  outfit,  I  should 
like  to  go  to  the  colonies  and  work  on  the  land 
there."  Rex  thought  the  vagueness  of  the  phrase 
prudential ;  "  the  colonies"  necessarily  embracing 
more  advantages,  and  being  less  capable  of  being 
rebutted  on  a  single  ground,  than  any  particular 
settlement. 

"  Oh,  and  with  me,  papa,"  said  Anna,  not  bear- 
ing to  be  left  out  from  the  proposal  even  tempo- 
rarily. "  Rex  would  want  some  one  to  take  care 
of  him,  you  know — some  one  to  keep  house.  And 
we  shall  never,  either  of  us,  be  married.  And  I 
should  cost  nothing,  and  I  should  be  so  happy. 
I  know  it  would  be  hard  to  leave  you  and  mam- 
ma ;  but  there  are  all  the  others  to  bring  up,  and 
we  two  should  be  no  trouble  to  you  any  more." 

Anna  had  risen  from  her  seat,  and  used  the 
feminine  argument  of  going  closer  to  her  papa 
as  she  spoke.  He  did  not  smile,  but  he  drew  her 
on  his  knee  and  held  her  there,  as  if  to  put  her 
gently  out  of  the  question  while  he  spoke  to  Rex. 

"  You  will  admit  that  my  experience  gives  me 
some  power  of  judging  for  you,  and  that  I  can 
probably  guide  you  in  practical  matters  better 
than  you  can  guide  yourself  ?" 

Rex  was  obliged  to  say, "  Yes,  Sir." 

"And  perhaps  you  will  admit— though  I  don't 
wish  to  press  that  point— that  you  are  bound  in 
duty  to  consider  my  judgment  and  wishes  ?" 

"  I  have  never  yet  placed  myself  in  opposition 
to  you,  Sir."  Rex  in  his  secret  soul  could  not 
foci  that  he  was  bound  not  to  go  to  the  colonies, 


BOOK  I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


|] 


but  to  go  to  Oxford  again — which  was  the  point 
in  question. 

"But  you  will  do  so  if  you  persist  in  setting 
your  mind  toward  a  rash  and  foolish  procedure, 
and  deafening  yourself  to  considerations  which 
my  experience  of  life  assures  me  of.  You  think, 
I  suppose,  that  you  have  had  a  shock  which  has 
changed  all  your  inclinations,  stupefied  your  brains, 
unfitted  you  for  any  thing  but  manual  labor,  and 
given  you  a  dislike  to  society  ?  Is  that  what  you 
believe  ?" 

"Something  like  that.  I  shall  never  be  up  to 
the  sort  of  work  I  must  do  to  live  in  this  part  of 
the  world.  I  have  not  the  spirit  for  it.  I  shall 
never  be  the  same  again.  And  without  any  dis- 
respect to  you,  father,  I  think  a  young  fellow 
should  be  allowed  to  choose  his  way  of  life,  if  he 
does  nobody  any  harm.  There  are  plenty  to  stay 
at  home,  and  those  who  like  might  be  allowed  to 
go  where  there  are  empty  places." 

"  But  suppose  I  am  convinced  on  good  evi- 
dence— as  I  am — that  this  state  of  mind  of  yours 
is  transient,  and  that  if  you  went  off  as  you  pro- 
pose, you  would  by-and-by  repent,  and  feel  that 
you  had  let  yourself  slip  back  from  the  point  you 
have  been  gaining  by  your  education  till  now  ? 
Have  you  not  strength  of  mind  enough  to  see 
that  you  had  better  act  on  my  assurance  for  a 
time,  and  test  it  ?  In  my  opinion,  so  far  from 
agreeing  with  you  that  you  should  be  free  to  turn 
yourself  into  a  colonist,  and  work  in  your  shirt 
sleeves  with  spade  and  hatchet — in  my  opinion, 
you  have  no  right  whatever  to  expatriate  your- 
self until  you  have  honestly  endeavored  to  turn 
to  account  the  education  you  have  received  here. 
I  say  nothing  of  the  grief  to  your  mother  and  me." 

"  I'm  very  sorry ;  but  what  can  I  do  ?  I  can't 
study — that's  certain,"  said  Rex. 

"Not  just  now,  perhaps.  You  will  have  to 
miss  a  term.  I  have  made  arrangements  for  you 
— how  you  are  to  spend  the  next  two  months. 
But  I  confess  I  am  disappointed  in  you,  Rex.  I 
thought  you  had  more  sense  than  to  take  up  such 
ideas — to  suppose  that  because  you  have  fallen 
into  a  very  common  trouble,  such  as  most  men 
have  to  go  through,  you  arc  loosened  from  all 
bonds  of  duty — just  as  if  your  brain  had  softened 
and  you  were  no  longer  a  responsible  being." 

What  could  Rex  say  ?  Inwardly  he  was  in  a 
state  of  rebellion,  but  he  had  no  arguments  to 
meet  his  father's ;  and  while  he  was  feeling,  in 
spite  of  any  thing  that  might  be  said,  that  he 
should  like  to  go  off  to  "  the  colonies"  to-morrow, 
it  lay  in  a  deep  fold  of  his  consciousness  that  he 
ought  to  feel — if  he  had  been  a  better  fellow,  he 
would  have  felt— more  about  his  old  ties.  This 
is  the  sort  of  faith  we  live  by  in  our  soul-sick- 


Rex  got  up  from  his  seat,  as  if  he  held  the 
conference  to  be  at  an  end.  "  You  assent  to  my 
arrangement,  then?"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  with 
that  distinct  resolution  of  tone  which  seems  to 
hold  one  in  a  vise. 

There  was  a  little  pause  before  Rex  answered, 
"  I'll  try  what  I  can  do,  Sir.  I  can't  promise." 
His  thought  was,  that  trying  would  be  of  no  use. 

Her  father  kept  Anna,  holding  her  fast,  though 
she  wanted  to  follow  Rex.  "  Oh,  papa,"  she  said, 
the  tears  coming  with  her  words  when  the  door 
had  closed,  "  it  is  very  hard  for  him.  Doesn't  he 
look  ill  ?" 

"  Yes,  but  he  will  soon  be  better ;  it  will  all 


blow  over.  And  now,  Anna,  be  as  quiet  as  a 
mouse  about  it  all.  Never  let  it  be  mentioned 
when  he  is  gone." 

"  No,  papa.  But  I  would  not  be  like  Gwen- 
dolen for  any  thing — to  have  people  fall  in  love 
with  me  so.  It  is  very  dreadful." 

Anna  dared  not  say  that  she  was  disappointed 
at  not  being  allowed  to  go  to  the  colonies  with 
Rex;  but  that  was  her  secret  feeling,  and  she 
often  afterward  went  inwardly  over  the  whole  af- 
fair, saying  to  herself,  "  I  should  have  done  with 
going  out,  and  gloves,  and  crinoline,  and  having  to 
talk  when  I  am  taken  to  dinner — and  all  that !" 

I  like  to  mark  the  time,  and  connect  the  course 
of  individual  lives  with  the  historic  stream,  for  all 
classes  of  thinkers.  This  was  the  period  when 
the  broadening  of  gauge  in  crinolines  seemed  to 
demand  an  agitation  for  the  general  enlargement 
of  churches,  ball-rooms,  and  vehicles.  But  Anna 
Gascoigne's  figure  would  only  allow  the  size  of 
skirt  manufactured  for  young  ladies  of  fourteen. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

I'll  tell  thee.  Berthold,  what  men's  liopee  are  like : 
A  silly  child  that,  quivering  with  joy, 
Would  cast  its  little  mimic  fishing  line, 
Baited  with  loadstone,  for  a  bowl  of  toys 
In  the  salt  ocean. 

EIGHT  months  after  the  arrival  of  the  family  at 
Offendene — that  is  to  say,  in  the  end  of  the  follow- 
ing June — a  rumor  was  spread  in  the  neighbor- 
hood which  to  many  persons  was  matter  of  excit- 
ing interest.  It  had  no  reference  to  the  results  of 
the  American  war,  but  it  was  one  which  touched 
all  classes  within  a  certain  circuit  round  Wan- 
cester — the  corn-factors,  the  brewers,  the  horse- 
dealers,  and  saddlers,  all  held  it  a  laudable  thing, 
and  one  which  was  to  be  rejoiced  in  on  abstract 
grounds  as  showing  the  value  of  an  aristocracy 
in  a  free  country  like  England ;  the  blacksmith 
in  the  hamlet  of  Diplow  felt  that  a  good  time 
had  come  round ;  the  wives  of  laboring-men  hoped 
their  nimble  boys  of  ten  or  twelve  would  be  taken 
into  employ  by  the  gentlemen  in  livery ;  and  the 
farmers  about  Diplow  admitted,  with  a  tincture 
of  bitterness  and  reserve,  that  a  man  might  now 
again  perhaps  have  an  easier  market  or  exchange 
for  a  rick  of  old  hay  or  a  wagon-load  of  straw. 
If  such  were  the  hopes  of  low  persons  not  in  so- 
ciety, it  may  be  easily  inferred  that  their  betters 
had  better  reasons  for  satisfaction,  probably  con- 
nected with  the  pleasures  of  life  rather  than  its 
business.  Marriage,  however,  must  be  consider- 
ed as  coming  under  both  heads;  and  just  as 
when  a  visit  of  Majesty  is  announced,  the  dream 
of  knighthood  or  a  baronetcy  is  to  be  found  un- 
der various  municipal  night-caps,  so  the  news  in 
question  raised  a  floating  indeterminate  vision  of 
marriage  in  several  well-bred  imaginations. 

The  news  was  that  Diplow  Hall,  Sir  Hugo  Mal- 
linger's  place,  which  had  for  a  couple  of  years 
turned  its  white  window-shutters  in  a  painfully 
wall-eyed  manner  on  its  fine  elms  and  beeches, 
its  lilied  pool,  and  grassy  acres  specked  with  deer, 
was  being  prepared  for  a  tenant,  and  was  for  the 
rest  of  the  summer  and  through  the  hunting  sea- 
son to  be  inhabited  in  a  fitting  style  both  as  to 
house  and  stable.  But  not  by  Sir  Hugo  himself : 
by  his  nephew,  Mr.  Mallinger  Grandcourt,  who 
was  presumptive  heir  to  the  baronetcy,  his  uncle's 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


marriage  having  produced  nothing  but  girls.  Nor 
was  this  the  only  contingency  with  which  fortune 
flattered  young  Grandcourt,  as  he  was  pleasantly 
called;  for  while  the  chance  of  the  baronetcy 
came  through  his  father,  his  mother  had  given  a 
baronial  streak  to  his  blood,  so  that  if  certain  in- 
tervening pei-sons  slightly  painted  in  the  middle 
distance  died,  he  would  become  a  Baron  and  peer 
of  this  realm. 

It  is  the  uneven  allotment  of  nature  that  the 
male  bird  alone  has  the  tuft,  but  we  have  not  yet 
followed  the  advice  of  hasty  philosophers  who 
would  have  us  copy  nature  entirely  in  these  mat- 
ters ;  and  if  Mr.  Mallinger  Grandcourt  became  a 
Baronet  or  a  peer,  his  wife  would  share  the  title — 
which  in  addition  to  his  actual  fortune  was  cer- 
tainly a  reason  why  that  wife,  being  at  present 
unchosen,  should  be  thought  of  by  more  than  one 
person  with  sympathetic  interest  as  a  woman  sure 
to  be  well  provided  for. 

Some  readers  of  this  history  will  doubtless  re- 
gard it  as  incredible  that  people  should  construct 
matrimonial  prospects  on  the  mere  report  that 
a  bachelor  of  good  fortune  and  possibilities  was 
coming  within  reach,  and  will  reject  the  state- 
ment as  a  mere  outflow  of  gall :  they  will  aver 
that  neither  they  nor  their  first  cousins  have 
minds  so  unbridled ;  and  that,  in  fact,  this  is  not 
human  nature,  which  would  know  that  such  spec- 
ulations might  turn  out  to  be  fallacious,  and  would 
therefore  not  entertain  them.  But,  let  it  be  ob- 
served, nothing  is  here  narrated  of  human  nature 
generally:  the  history  in  its  present  stage  con- 
cerns only  a  few  people  in  a  corner  of  Wessex, 
whose  reputation,  however,  was  unimpeached,  and 
who,  I  am  in  the  proud  position  of  being  able  to 
state,  were  all  on  visiting  terms  with  persons  of 
rank. 

There  were  the  Arrowpoints,  for  example,  in 
their  beautiful  place  at  Quetcham :  no  one  could 
attribute  sordid  views  in  relation  to  their  daugh- 
ter's marriage  to  parents  who  could  leave  her  at 
least  half  a  million  ;  but  having  affectionate  anx- 
ieties about  their  Catherine's  position  (she  having 
resolutely  refused  Lord  Slogan,  an  unexception- 
able Irish  peer,  whose  estate  wanted  nothing  but 
drainage  and  population),  they  wondered,  perhaps 
from  something  more  than  a  charitable  impulse, 
whether  Mr.  Grandcourt  was  good-looking,  of 
sound  constitution,  virtuous,  or  at  least  reformed, 
and  if  liberal-conservative,  not  too  liberal-con- 
servative ;  and  without  wishing  any  body  to  die, 
thought  his  succession  to  the  title  an  event  to  be 
desired. 

If  the  Arrowpoints  had  such  ruminations,  it  is 
the  less  surprising  that  they  were  stimulated  in 
Mr.  Gascoigne,  who  for  being  a  clergyman  was 
not  the  less  subject  to  the  anxieties  of  a  parent 
and  guardian ;  and  we  have  seen  how  both  he 
and  Mrs.  Gascoigne  might  by  this  tune  have  come 
to  feel  that  he  was  overcharged  with  the  man- 
agement of  young  creatures  who  were  hardly  to 
be  held  in  with  bit  or  bridle,  or  any  sort  of  meta- 
phor that  would  stand  for  judicious  advice. 

Naturally,  people  did  not  tell  each  other  all 
they  felt  and  thought  about  young  Grandcourt's 
advent :  on  no  subject  is  this  openness  found  pru- 
dentially  practicable — not  even  on  the  generation 
of  acids,  or  the  destination  of  the  fixed  stars  ;  for 
cither  your  contemporary  with  a  mind  turned  to- 
ward the  same  subjects  may  find  your  ideas  in- 
genious and  forestall  you  in  applying  them,  or  he 


may  have  other  views  on  acids  and  fixed  stars, 
and  think  ill  of  you  in  consequence.  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne did  not  ask  Mr.  Arrowpoint  if  he  had  any 
trustworthy  source  of  information  about  Grand- 
court,  considered  as  a  husband  for  a  charming 
girl ;  nor  did  Mrs.  Arrowpoint  observe  to  Mrs. 
Davilow  that  if  the  possible  peer  sought  a  wife 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Diplow,  the  only  reason- 
able expectation  was  that  he  would  offer  his  hand 
to  Catherine,  who,  however,  would  not  accept  him 
unless  he  were  in  all  respects  fitted  to  secure  her 
happiness.  Indeed,  even  to  his  wife  the  Rector 
was  silent  as  to  the  contemplation  of  any  matri- 
monial result,  from  the  probability  that  Mr.  Grand- 
court  would  see  Gwendolen  at  the  next  Archery 
Meeting ;  though  Mrs.  Gascoigne's  mind  was  very 
likely  still  more  active  in  the  same  direction. 
She  had  said  interjectionally  to  her  sister,  "  It 
would  be  a  mercy,  Fanny,  if  that  girl  were  well 
married !"  to  which  Mrs.  Davilow,  discerning 
some  criticism  of  her  darling  in  the  fervor  of 
that  wish,  had  not  chosen  to  make  any  audible 
reply,  though  she  had  said,  inwardly,  "  You  will 
not  get  her  to  marry  for  your  pleasure ;"  the 
mild  mother  becoming  rather  saucy  when  she 
identified  herself  with  her  daughter. 

To  her  husband  Mrs.  Gascoigne  said,  "  I  hear 
Mr.  Grandcourt  has  two  places  of  his  own,  but 
he  comes  to  Diplow  for  the  hunting.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  he  will  set  a  good  example  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. Have  you  heard  what  sort  of  young 
man  he  is,  Henry  ?" 

Mr.  Gascoigne  had  not  heard ;  at  least,  if  his 
male  acquaintances  had  gossiped  in  his  hearing, 
he  was  not  disposed  to  repeat  their  gossip,  or 
give  it  any  emphasis  in  his  own  mind.  He  held 
it  futile,  even  if  it  had  been  becoming,  to  show 
any  curiosity  as  to  the  past  of  a  young  man  whose 
birth,  wealth,  and  consequent  leisure  made  many 
habits  venial  which  under  other  circumstances 
would  have  been  inexcusable.  Whatever  Grand- 
court  had  done,  he  had  not  ruined  himself ;  and 
it  is  well  known  that  in  gambling,  for  example, 
whether  of  the  business  or  holiday  sort,  a  man 
who  has  the  strength  of  mind  to  leave  off  when 
he  has  only  ruined  others,  is  a  reformed  charac- 
ter. This  is  an  illustration  merely.  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne had  not  heard  that  Grandcourt  had  been 
a  gambler;  and  we  can  hardly  pronounce  him 
singular  in  feeling  that  a  landed  proprietor  with 
a  mixture  of  noble  blood  in  his  veins  was  not  to 
be  an  object  of  suspicious  inquiry  like  a  reformed 
character  who  offers  himself  as  your  butler  or 
footman.  Reformation,  where  a  man  can  afford 
to  do  without  it,  can  hardly  be  other  than  genu- 
ine. Moreover,  it  was  not  certain  on  any  show- 
ing hitherto  that  Mr.  Grandcourt  had  needed  ref- 
ormation more  than  other  young  men  in  the  ripe 
youth  of  five-and-thirty ;  and  at  any  rate,  the  sig- 
nificance of  what  he  had  been  must  be  determined 
by  what  he  actually  was. 

Mrs.  Davilow,  too,  although  she  would  not  re- 
spond to  her  sister's  pregnant  remark,  could  not 
be  inwardly  indifferent  to  an  event  that  might 
promise  a  brilliant  lot  for  Gwendolen.  A  little 
speculation  on  "  what  may  be"  comes  naturally, 
without  encouragement— —comes  inevitably  in  the 
form  of  images,  when  unknown  persons  arc  men- 
tioned; and  Mr.  Grandcourt's  name  raised  in 
Mrs.  Davilow's  mind  first  of  all  the  picture  of  a 
handsome,  accomplished,  excellent  young  man, 
whom  she  would  be  satisfied  with  as  a  husband 


BOOK   I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


8?) 


for  her  daughter;  but  then  came  the  further 
speculation— would  Gwendolen  be  satisfied1  with 
him  ?  There  was  no  knowing  what  would  meet 
that  girl's  taste  or  touch  her  affections — it  might 
be  something  else  than  excellence ;  and  thus  the 
image  of  the  perfect  suitor  gave  way  before  a 
fluctuating  combination  of  qualities  that  might 
be  imagined  to  win  Gwendolen's  heart.  In  the 
difficulty  of  arriving  at  the  particular  combina- 
tion which  would  insure  that  result,  the  mother 
even  said  to  herself,  "  It  would  not  signify  about 
her  being  in  love,  if  she  would  only  accept  the 
right  person."  For  whatever  marriage  had  been 
for  herself,  how  could  she  the  less  desire  it  for 
her  daughter  ?  The  difference  her  own  misfor- 
tunes made  was  that  she  never  dared  to  dwell 
much  to  Gwendolen  on  the  desirableness  of  mar- 
riage, dreading  an  answer  something  like  that  of 
the  future  Madame  Roland,  when  her  gentle  moth- 
er, urging  the  acceptance  of  a  suitor,  said,  "  Tu 
seras  heureuse,  ma  chere."  "  Oui,  maman,  comme 
toi." 

In  relation  to  the  problematic  Mr.  Grandcourt, 
least  of  all  would  Mrs.  Davilow  have  willingly 
let  fall  a  hint  of  the  aerial  castle  building  which 
she  had  the  good  taste  to  be  ashamed  of;  for 
such  a  hint  was  likely  enough  to  give  an  adverse 
poise  to  Gwendolen's  own  thought,  and  make  her 
detest  the  desirable  husband  beforehand.  Since 
that  scene  after  poor  Rex's  farewell  visit,  the 
mother  had  felt  a  new  sense  of  peril  in  touching 
the  mystery  of  her  child's  feeling  and  in  rash- 
ly determining  what  was  her  welfare :  only  she 
could  think  of  welfare  in  no  other  shape  than 
marriage. 

The  discussion  of  the  dress  that  Gwendolen 
was  to  wear  at  the  Archery  Meeting  was  a  rele- 
vant topic,  however ;  and  when  it  had  been  de- 
cided that  as  a  touch  of  color  on  her  white  cash- 
mere nothing  for  her  complexion  was  comparable 
to  pale  green — a  feather  which  she  was  trying 
in  her  hat  before  the  looking-glass  having  settled 
the  question — Mrs.  Davilow  felt  her  ears  tingle 
when  Gwendolen,  suddenly  throwing  herself  into 
the  attitude  of  drawing  her  bow,  said,  with  a  look 
of  comic  enjoyment, 

"  How  I  pity  all  the  other  girls  at  the  Archery 
Meeting — all  thinking  of  Mr.  Grandcourt !  And 
they  have  not  a  shadow  of  a  chance." 

Mrs.  Davilow  had  not  presence  of  mind  to  an- 
swer immediately,  and  Gwendolen  turned  quickly 
round  toward  her,  saying,  wickedly, 

"  Now  you  know  they  have  not,  mamma.  You 
and  my  uncle  and  aunt — you  all  intend  him  to 
fall  in  love  with  me." 

Mrs.  Davilow,  piqued  into  a  little  stratagem, 
said,  "  Oh,  my  dear,  that  is  not  so  certain.  Miss 
Arrowpoint  has  charms  which  you  have  not." 

"I  know.  But  they  demand  thought.  My 
arrow  will  pierce  him  before  he  has  tune  for 
thought.  He  will  declare  himself  my  slave — I 
shall  send  him  round  the  world  to  bring  me  back 
the  wedding-ring  of  a  happy  woman — hi  the  mean 
time  all  the  men  who  are  between  him  and  the 
title  will  die  of  different  diseases — he  will  come 
back  Lord  Grandcourt — but  without  the  ring — 
and  fall  at  my  feet.  I  shall  laugh  at  him — he 
will  rise  hi  resentment — I  shall  laugh  more — he 
will  call  for  his  steed  and  ride  to  Quetcham, 
where  he  will  find  Miss  Arrowpoint  just  married 
to  a  needy  musician,  Mrs.  Arrowpoint  tearing  her 
cap  off,  and  Mr.  Arrowpoint  standing  by.  Exit 
C 


Lord  Grandcourt,  who  returns  to  Diplow,  and, 
like  M.  Jabot,  change  de  linye." 

Was  ever  any  young  witch  like  this?  You 
thought  of  hiding  things  from  her,  sat  upon  your 
secret  and  looked  innocent,  and  all  the  while  she 
knew  by  the  corner  of  your  eye  that  it  was  ex- 
actly five  pounds  ten  you  were  sitting  on!  As 
well  turn  the  key  to  keep  out  the  damp !  It  was 
probable  that  by  dint  of  divination  she  already 
knew  more  than  any  one  else  did  of  Mr.  Grand- 
court.  That  idea  in  Mrs.  Davilow's  mind  prompt- 
ed the  sort  of  question  which  often  comes  with- 
out any  other  apparent  reason  than  the  faculty 
of  speech  and  the  not  knowing  what  to  do  with  it. 

"  Why,  what  kind  of  man  do  you  imagine  him 
to  be,  Gwendolen  ?" 

"  Let  me  see !"  said  the  witch,  putting  her  fore- 
finger to  her  lips  with  a  little  frown,  and  then 
stretching  out  the  finger  with  decision.  "  Short 
— just  above  my  shoulder — trying  to  make  him- 
self tall  by  turning  up  his  mustache  and  keeping 
his  beard  long — a  glass  in  his  right  eye  to  give 
him  an  air  of  distinction — a  strong  opinion  about 
his  waistcoat,  but  uncertain  and  trimming  about 
the  weather,  on  which  he  will  try  to  draw  me 
out.  He  will  stare  at  me  all  the  while,  and  the 
glass  in  his  eye  will  cause  him  to  make  horrible 
faces,  especially  when  he  smiles  in  a  flattering 
way.  I  shall  cast  down  my  eyes  in  consequence, 
and  he  will  perceive  that  I  am  not  indifferent  to 
his  attentions.  I  shall  dream  that  night  that  I 
am  looking  at  the  extraordinary  face  of  a  mag- 
nified insect — and  the  next  morning  he  will  make 
me  an  offer  of  his  hand ;  the  sequel  as  before." 

"  That  is  a  portrait  of  some  one  you  have  seen 
already,  Gwen.  Mr.  Grandcourt  may  be  a  de- 
lightful young  man  for  what  you  know." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  high  note 
of  careless  admission,  taking  off  her  best  hat  and 
turning  it  round  on  her  hand  contemplatively. 
"I  wonder  what  sort  of  behavior  a  delightful 
young  man  would  have !"  Then,  with  a  merry 
change  of  face,  "  I  know  he  would  have  hunters 
and  racers,  and  a  London  house  and  two  country- 
houses — one  with  battlements  and  another  with 
a  veranda.  And  I  feel  sure  that  with  a  little 


The  irony  of  this  speech  was  of  the  doubtful 
sort  that  has  some  genuine  belief  mixed  up  with 
it.  Poor  Mrs.  Davilow  felt  uncomfortable  under 
it,  her  own  meanings  being  usually  literal  and  in 
intention  innocent;  and  she  said,  with  a  dis- 
tressed brow, 

"  Don't  talk  hi  that  way,  child,  for  Heaven's 
sake!  you  do  read  such  books — they  give  you 
such  ideas  of  every  thing.  I  declare  when  your 
aunt  and  I  were  your  age,  we  knew  nothing  about 
wickedness.  I  think  it  was  better  so." 

"  Why  did  you  not  bring  me  up  in  that  way, 
mamma?"  said  Gwendolen.  But  immediately 
perceiving  in  the  crushed  look  and  rising  sob  that 
she  had  given  a  deep  wound,  she  tossed  down  her 
hat,  and  knelt  at  her  mother's  feet,  crying, 

"  Mamma !  mamma !  I  was  only  speaking  in 
fun.  I  meant  nothing." 

"  How  could  I,  Gwendolen  ?"  said  poor  Mrs. 
Davilow,  unable  to  hear  the  retractation,  and 
sobbing  violently  while  she  made  the  effort  to 
speak.  "Your  will  was  always  too  strong  for 
me — if  every  thing  else  had  been  different." 

This  disjointed  logic  was  intelligible  enough  to 
the  daughter.  "  Dear  mamma,  I  don't  find  fault 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


with  you — I  love  you,"  said  Gwendolen,  really 
compunctious.  "  How  can  you  help  what  I  am  ? 
Besides,  I  am  very  charming.  Come,  now."  Here 
Gwendolen  with  her  handkerchief  gently  rubbed 
away  her  mother's  tears.  "  Really — I  am  con- 
tented with  myself.  I  like  myself  better  than 
I  should  have  liked  my  aunt  and  you.  How 
dreadfully  dull  you  must  have  been  !" 

Such  tender  cajolery  served  to  quiet  the  moth- 
er, as  it  had  often  done  before  after  like  collis- 
ions. Not  that  the  collisions  had  often  been 
repeated  at  the  same  point ;  for  in  the  memory 
of  both  they  left  an  association  of  dread  with 
the  particular  topics  which  had  occasioned  them : 
Gwendolen  dreaded  the  unpleasant  sense  of  com- 
punction toward  her  mother,  which  was  the  near- 
est approach  to  self-condemnation  and  self-dis- 
trust that  she  had  known ;  and  Mrs.  Davilow's 
timid  maternal  conscience  dreaded  whatever  had 
brought  on  the  slightest  hint  of  reproach.  Hence, 
after  this  little  scene,  the  two  concurred  in  ex- 
cluding Mr.  Grandcourt  from  their  conversation. 

When  Mr.  Gascoigne  once  or  twice  referred  to 
him,  Mrs.  Davilow  feared  lest  Gwendolen  should 
betray  some  of  her  alarming  keen-sightedness 
about  what  was  probably  in  her  uncle's  mind; 
but  the  fear  was  not  justified.  Gwendolen  knew 
certain  differences  in  the  characters  with  which 
she  was  concerned  as  birds  know  climate  and 
weather;  and,  for  the  very  reason  that  she  was 
determined  to  evade  her  uncle's  control,  she  was 
determined  not  to  clash  with  him.  The  good 
understanding  between  them  was  much  fostered 
by  their  enjoyment  of  archery  together :  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne, as  one  of  the  best  bowmen  in  Wessex, 
was  gratified  to  find  the  elements  of  like  skill  in 
his  niece;  and  Gwendolen  was  the  more  careful 
not  to  lose  the  shelter  of  his  fatherly  indulgence, 
because  since  the  trouble  with  Rex  both  Mrs. 
Gascoigne  and  Anna  had  been  unable  to  hide 
what  she  felt  to  be  a  very  unreasonable  aliena- 
tion from  her.  Toward  Anna  she  took  some 
pains  to  behave  with  a  regretful  affectionateness ; 
but  neither  of  them  dared  to  mention  Rex's  name, 
and  Anna,  to  whom  the  thought  of  him  was  part 
of  the  air  she  breathed,  was  ill  at  ease  with  the 
lively  cousin  who  had  ruined  his  happiness.  She 
tried  dutifully  to  repress  any  sign  of  her  changed 
feeling ;  but  who  in  pain  can  imitate  the  glance 
and  hand-touch  of  pleasure  ? 

This  unfair  resentment  had  rather  a  hardening 
effect  on  Gwendolen,  and  threw  her  into  a  more 
defiant  temper.  Her  uncle  too  might  be  offend- 
ed if  she  refused  the  next  person  who  fell  in  love 
with  her ;  and  one  day  when  that  idea  was  in  her 
mind  she  said : 

"  Mamma,  I  see  now  why  girls  are  glad  to  be 
married— to  escape  being  expected  to  please  every 
body  but  themselves." 

Happily,  Mr.  Middleton  was  gone  without  hav- 
ing made  any  avowal ;  and  notwithstanding  the 
admiration  for  the  handsome  Miss  Harleth,  ex- 
tending perhaps  over  thirty  square  miles  in  a 
part  of  We'ssex  well  studded  with  families  whose 
members  included  several  disengaged  young  men, 
each  glad  to  seat  himself  by  the  lively  girl  with 
whom  it  was  BO  easy  to  get  on  in  conversation — 
notwithstanding  these  grounds  for  arguing  that 
Gwendolen  was  likely  to  have  other  suitors  more 
explicit  than  the  cautious  curate,  the  fact  was 
not  so. 

Care  has  been  taken  not  only  that  the  trees 


should  not  sweep  the  stars  down,  but  also  that 
ever^  man  who  admires  a  fair  girl  should  not  be 
enamored  of  her,  and  even  that  every  man  who 
is  enamored  should  not  necessarily  declare  him- 
self. There  are  various  refined  shapes  in  which 
the  price  of  corn,  known  to  be  a  potent  cause  in 
this  relation,  might,  if  inquired  into,  show  why  a 
young  lady,  perfect  in  person,  accomplishments, 
and  costume,  has  not  the  trouble  of  rejecting 
many  offers ;  and  Nature's  order  is  certainly  be- 
nignant in  not  obliging  us  one  and  all  to  be 
desperately  in  love  with  the  most  admirable  mor- 
tal we  have  ever  seen.  •  Gwendolen,  we  know, 
was  far  from  holding  that  supremacy  in  the  minds 
of  all  observers.  Besides,  it  was  but  a  poor  eight 
months  since  she  had  come  to  Offendene,  and  some 
inclinations  become  manifest  slowly,  like  the  sun- 
ward creeping  of  plants. 

In  face  of  this  fact  that  not  one  of  the  eligible 
young  men  already  in  the  neighborhood  had 
made  Gwendolen  an  offer,  why  should  Mr.  Grand- 
court  be  thought  of  as  likely  to  do  what  they  had 
left  undone  ? 

Perhaps  because  he  was  thought  of  as  still 
more  eligible ;  since  a  great  deal  of  what  passes 
for  likelihood  in  the  world  is  simply  the  reflex  of 
a  wish.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  for  example, 
having  no  anxiety  that  Miss  Harleth  should 
make  a  brilliant  marriage,  had  quite  a  different, 
likelihood  in  their  minds. 


CHAPTER  X. 

1st  Gent.  What  woman  should  be  ?    Sir,  consult  the 

taste 

Of  marriageable  men.    This  planet's  store 
In  iron,  cotton,  wool,  or  chemicals — 
All  matter  rendered  to  our  plastic  skill, 
Is  wrought  in  shapes  responsive  to  demand : 
The  market's  pulse  makes  index  high  or  low, 
By  rule  sublime.    Our  daughters  must  be  wives, 
And  to  be  wives  must  be  what  men  will  choose: 
Men's  taste  is  woman's  test.    Yon  mark  the  phrase  ? 
Tis  good,  I  think? — the  sense  well  winged  and  poised 
With  t's  and  s's. 

8d  Gent.  Nay,  but  turn  it  round : 

Give  us  the  test  of  taste.    A  fine  menu — 
Is  it  to-day  What  Roman  epicures 
Insisted  that  a  gentleman  must  eat 
To  earn  the  dignity  of  diiiing  well? 

BRACKENSHAW  PARK,  where  the  Archery  Meet- 
ing was  held,  looked  out  from  its  gentle  heights 
far  over  the  neighboring  valley  to  the  outlying 
eastern  downs  and  the  broad  slow  rise  of  culti- 
vated country  hanging  like  a  vast  curtain  toward 
the  west.  The  castle,  which  stood  on  the  highest 
platform  of  the  clustered  hills,  was  built  of  rough- 
hewn  limestone,  full  of  lights  and  shadows  made 
by  the  dark  dust  of  lichens  and  the  washings  of 
the  rain.  Masses  of  beech  and  fir  sheltered  it  on 
the  north,  and  spread  down  here  and  there  along 
the  green  slopes,  like  flocks  seeking  the  water 
which  gleamed  below.  The  archery  ground  was 
a  carefully  kept  inelosure  on  a  bit  of  table-land 
at  the  farthest  end  of  the  park,  protected  toward 
the  southwest  by  tall  elms  and  a  thick  screen  of 
hollies,  which  kept  the  gravel-walk  and  the  bit  of 
newly  mown  turf  where  the  targets  were  placed 
n  agreeable  afternoon  shade.  The  Archery  Hall 
with  an  arcade  in  front  showed  like  a  white  tem- 
ple against  the  greenery  on  the  northern  side. 

What  could  make  a  better  background  for  the 
flower-groups  of  ladies,  moving  and  bowing  and 


BOOK   I.— THE   SPOILED   CHILD. 


35 


turning  their  necks  as  it  would  become  the  lei- 
surely lilies  to  do  if  they  took  to  locomotion? 
The  sounds  too  were  very  pleasant  to  hear,  even 
when  the  military  band  from  Wancester  ceased 
to  play:  musical  laughs  in  all  the  registers  and 
a  harmony  of  happy  friendly  speeches,  now  rising 
toward  mild  excitement,  now  sinking  to  an  agree- 
able murmur. 

Xo  open-air  amusement  could  be  much  freer 
from  those  noisy,  crowding  conditions  which  spoil 
most  modern  pleasures ;  no  archery  meeting  could 
be  more  select,  the  number  of  friends  accompany- 
ing the  members  being  restricted  by  an  award  of 
tickets,  so  as  to  keep  the  maximum  within  the 
limits  of  convenience  for  the  dinner  and  ball  to 
be  held  in  the  castle.  Within  the  inclosure  no 
plebeian  spectators  were  admitted  except  Lord 
Brackenshaw's  tenants  and  their  families,  and  of 
these  it  was  chiefly  the  feminine  members  who 
used  the  privilege,  bringing  their  little  boys  and 
girls  or  younger  brothers  and  sisters.  The  males 
among  them  relieved  the  insipidity  of  the  enter- 
tainment by  imaginative  betting,  in  which  the 
stake  was  "  any  thing  you  like,"  on  their  favorite 
archers ;  but  the  young  maidens,  having  a  differ- 
ent principle  of  discrimination,  were  considering 
which  of  those  sweetly  dressed  ladies  they  would 
choose  to  be,  if  the  choice  were  allowed  them. 
Probably  the  form  these  rural  souls  would  most 
have  striven  for  as  a  tabernacle  was  some  other 
than  Gwendolen's — one  with  more  pink  in  her 
cheeks,  and  hair  of  the  most  fashionable  yellow ; 
but  among  the  male  judges  in  the  ranks  imme- 
diately surrounding  her  there  was  unusual  una- 
nimity in  pronouncing  her  the  finest  girl  present. 

No  wonder  she  enjoyed  her  existence  on  that 
July  day.  Pre-eminence  is  sweet  to  those  who 
love  it,  even  under  mediocre  circumstances :  per- 
haps it  is  not  quite  mythical  that  a  slave  has 
been  proud  to  be  bought  first ;  and  probably  a 
barn-door  fowl  on  sale,  though  he  may  not  have 
understood  himself  to  be  called  the  best  of  a  bad 
lot,  may  have  a  self -informed  consciousness  of 
his  relative  importance,  and  strut  consoled.  But 
for  complete  enjoyment  the  outward  and  the  in- 
ward must  concur.  And  that  concurrence  was 
happening  to  Gwendolen. 

Who  can  deny  that  bows  and  arrows  are  among 
the  prettiest  weapons  in  the  world  for  feminine 
forms  to  play  with  ?  They  prompt  attitudes  full 
of  grace  and  power,  where  that  fine  concentration 
of  energy  seen  in  all  marksmanship  is  freed  from 
associations  of  bloodshed.  The  time -honored 
British  resource  of  "killing  something"  is  no 
longer  carried  on  with  bow  and  quiver;  bands 
defending  their  passes  against  an  invading  na- 
tion fight  under  another  sort  of  shade  than  a 
cloud  of  arrows ;  and  poisoned  darts  are  harm- 
less survivals  either  in  rhetoric  or  in  regions  com- 
fortably remote.  Archery  has  no  ugly  smell  of 
brimstone ;  breaks  nobody's  shins,  breeds  no  ath- 
letic monsters ;  its  only  danger  is  that  of  failing, 
which  for  generous  blood  is  enough  to  mould  skill- 
ful action.  And  among  the  Brackcnshaw  arch- 
ers the  prizes  were  all  of  the  nobler  symbolic 
kind :  not  property  to  be  carried  off  in  a  parcel, 
degrading  honor  into  gain ;  but  the  gold  arrow 
and  the  silver,  the  gold  star  and  the  silver,  to  be 
worn  for  a  time  in  sign  of  achievement  and  then 
transferred  to  the  next  who  did  excellently.  These 
signs  of  pre-eminence  had  the  virtue  of  wreaths 
without  their  inconveniences,  which  might  have 


produced  a  melancholy  effect  in  the  heat  of  the 
ball-room.  Altogether  the  Brackenshaw  Archery 
Club  was  an  institution  framed  with  good  taste, 
so  as  not  to  have  by  necessity  any  ridiculous  in- 
cidents. 

And  to-day  all  incalculable  elements  were  in 
its  favor.  There  was  mild  warmth,  and  no  wind 
to  disturb  either  hair  or  drapery  or  the  course  of 
the  arrow ;  all  skillful  preparation  had  fair  play, 
and  when  there  was  a  general  march  to  extract 
the  arrows,  the  promenade  of  joyous  young  creat- 
ures in  light  speech  and  laughter,  the  graceful 
movement  in  common  toward  a  common  object, 
was  a  show  worth  looking  at.  Here  Gwendolen 
seemed  a  Calypso  among  her  nymphs.  It  was 
in  her  attitudes  and  movements  that  every  one 
was  obliged  to  admit  her  surpassing  charm. 

"  That  girl  is  like  a  high-mettled  racer,"  said 
Lord  Brackenshaw  to  young  Clintock,  one  of  the 
invited  spectators. 

"  First  chop !  tremendously  pretty  too,"  said 
the  elegant  Grecian,  who  had  been  paying  her 
assiduous  attention ;  "  I  never  saw  her  look  bet- 
ter." 

Perhaps  she  had  never  looked  so  well.  Her 
face  was  beaming  with  young  pleasure  hi  which 
there  were  no  malign  rays  of  discontent ;  for  be- 
ing satisfied  with  her  own  chances,  she  felt  kind- 
ly toward  every  body,  and  was  satisfied  with  the 
universe.  Not  to  have  the  highest  distinction  in 
rank,  not  to  be  marked  out  as  an  heiress,  like  Miss 
Arrowpoint,  gave  an  added  triumph  in  eclipsing 
those  advantages.  For  personal  recommendation 
she  would  not  have  cared  to  change  the  family 
group  accompanying  her  for  any  other :  her  mam- 
ma's appearance  would  have  suited  an  amiable 
Duchess;  her  uncle  and  aunt  Gascoigne  with 
Anna  made  equally  gratifying  figures  in  their 
way ;  and  Gwendolen  was  too  full  of  joyous  be- 
lief in  herself  to  feel  in  the  least  jealous  though 
Miss  Arrowpoint  was  one  of  the  best  archeresses. 

Even  the  re-appearance  of  the  formidable  Herr 
Klesmer,  which  caused  some  surprise  in  the  rest 
of  the  company,  seemed  only  to  fall  in  with 
Gwendolen's  inclination  to  be  amused.  Short  of 
Apollo  himself,  what  great  musical  maestro  could 
make  a  good  figure  at  an  archery  meeting  ?  There 
was  a  very  satirical  light  in  Gwendolen's  eyes  as 
she  looked  toward  the  Arrowpoint  party  on  their 
first  entrance,  when  the  contrast  between  Klesmer 
and  the  average  group  of  English  county  people 
seemed  at  its  utmost  intensity  in  the  close  neigh- 
borhood of  his  hosts — or  patrons,  as  Mrs.  Ar- 
rowpoint would  have  liked  to  hear  them  called, 
that  she  might  deny  the  possibility  of  any  longer 
patronizing  genius,  its  royalty  being  universally 
acknowledged.  The  contrast  might  have  amused 
a  graver  personage  than  Gwendolen.  We  En- 
glish are  a  miscellaneous  people,  and  any  chance 
fifty  of  us  will  present  many  varieties  of  animal 
architecture  or  facial  ornament ;  but  it  must  be 
admitted  that  our  prevailing  expression  is  not 
that  of  a  lively,  impassioned  race,  preoccupied 
with  the  ideal  and  carrying  the  real  as  a  mere 
make-weight.  The  strong  point  of  the  English 
gentleman  pure  is  the  easy  style  of  his  figure  and 
clothing;  he  objects  to  marked  ins  and  outs  in 
his  costume,  and  he  also  objects  to  looking  in- 
spired. 

Fancy  an  assemblage  where  the  men  had  all 
that  ordinary  stamp  of  the  well-bred  Englishman, 
watching  the  entrance  of  Herr  Klesmer — his  mane 


DAMEL  DERONDA. 


of  hair  floating  backward  in  massive  inconsisten- 
cy with  the  chimney-pot  hat,  which  had  the  look 
of  having  been  put  on  for  a  joke  above  his  pro- 
nounced but  well-modeled  features  and  powerful 
clean-shaven  mouth  and  chin ;  his  tall  thin  figure 
clad  in  a  way  which,  not  being  strictly  English, 
was  all  the  worse  for  its  apparent  emphasis  of  in- 
tention. Draped  in  a  loose  garment  with  a  Floren- 
tine berretta  on  his  head,  he  would  have  been  fit 
to  stand  by  the  side  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci ;  but 
how  when  he  presented  himself  in  trowsers  which 
were  not  what  English  feeling  demanded  about 
the  knees  ? — and  when  the  fire  that  showed  itself 
in  his  glances  and  the  movements  of  his  head,  as 
he  looked  round  him  with  curiosity,  was  turned 
into  comedy  by  a  hat  which  ruled  that  mankind 
should  have  well-cropped  hair  and  a  staid  demean- 
or, such,  for  example,  as  Mr.  Arrowpoint's,  whose 
nullity  of  face  and  perfect  tailoring  might  pass 
every  where  without  ridicule  ?  One  sees  why  it 
is  often  better  for  greatness  to  be  dead,  and  to 
have  got  rid  of  the  outward  man. 

Many  present  knew  Klesmer,  or  knew  of  him ; 
but  they  had  only  seen  him  on  candle-light  occa- 
sions when  he  appeared  simply  as  a  musician,  and 
he  had  not  yet  that  supreme,  world- wide  celebrity 
which  makes  an  artist  great  to  the  most  ordinary 
people  by  their  knowledge  of  his  great  expensive- 
ness.  It  was  literally  a  new  light  for  them  to 
see  him  in — presented  unexpectedly  on  this  July 
afternoon  hi  an  exclusive  society ;  some  were  in- 
clined to  laugh,  others  felt  a  little  disgust  at  the 
want  of  judgment  shown  by  the  Arrowpoints  in 
this  use  of  an  introductory  card. 

"What  extreme  guys  those  artistic  fellows 
usually  are !"  said  young  Clintock  to  Gwendolen. 
"  Do  look  at  the  figure  he  cuts,  bowing  with  his 
hand  on  his  heart  to  Lady  Brackenshaw — and 
Mrs.  Arrowpoint's  feather  just  reaching  his 
shoulder." 

"  You  are  one  of  the  profane,"  said  Gwendolen. 
"  You  are  blind  to  the  majesty  of  genius.  Herr 
Klesmer  smites  me  with  awe ;  I  feel  crushed  in 
his  presence ;  my  courage  all  oozes  from  me." 

"Ah,  you  understand  all  about  his  music." 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  light 
laugh ;  "  it  is  he  who  understands  all  about  mine, 
and  thinks  it  pitiable."  Klesmer's  verdict  on 
her  singing  had  been  an  easier  joke  to  her  since 
he  had  been  struck  by  her  plastik. 

"It  is  not  addressed  to  the  ears  of  the  future, 
I  suppose.  I'm  glad  of  that :  it  suits  mine." 

"  Oh,  you  are  very  kind.  But  how  remarkably 
well  Miss  Arrowpoint  looks  to-day !  She  would 
make  quite  a  fine  picture  in  that  gold -colored 


"  Too  splendid,  don't  you  think  ?" 

"  Well,  perhaps  a  little  too  symbolical — too 
much  like  the  figure  of  Wealth  in  an  allegory." 

This  speech  of  Gwendolen's  had  rather  a  mali- 
cious sound,  but  it  waa  not  really  more  than  a 
bubble  of  fun.  She  did  not  wish  Miss  Arrow- 
point  or  any  one  else  to  be  out  of  the  way,  be- 
lieving in  her  own  good  fortune  even  more  than 
in  her  skill.  The  belief  in  both  naturally  grew 
stronger  as  the  shooting  went  on,  for  she  prom- 
ised to  achieve  one  of  the  best  scores — a  success 
which  astonished  every  one  in  a  new  member ; 
and  to  Gwendolen's  temperament  one  success  de- 
termined another.  She  trod  on  air,  and  all  things 
pleasant  seemed  possible.  The  hour  was  enough 
for  her,  and  she  was  not  obliged  to  think  what 


she  should  do  next  to  keep  her  life  at  the  duo 
pitch. 

"  How  does  the  scoring  stand,  I  wonder  ?"  said 
Lady  Brackenshaw,  a  gracious  personage  who, 
adorned  with  two  fair  little  girls  and  a  boy  of 
stout  make,  sat  as  lady  paramount.  Her  lord 
had  come  up  to  her  in  one  of  the  intervals  of 
shooting.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  Miss  Harleth  is 
likely  to  win  the  gold  arrow." 

"  Gad,  I  think  she  will,  if  she  carries  it  on ! 
She  is  running  Juliet  Fenn  hard.  It  is  wonder- 
ful for  one  in  her  first  year.  Catherine  is  not  up 
to  her  usual  mark,"  continued  his  lordship,  turn- 
ing to  the  heiress's  mother  who  sat  near.  "  But 
she  got  the  gold  arrow  last  time.  And  there's  a 
luck  even  in  these  games  of  skill.  That's  better. 
It  gives  the  hinder  ones  a  chance." 

"Catherine  will  be  very  glad  for  others  to 
win,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint ;  "  she  is  so  magnani- 
mous. It  was  entirely  her  considerateness  that 
made  us  bring  Herr  Klesmer  instead  of  Canon 
Stopley,  who  had  expressed  a  wish  to  come.  For 
her  own  pleasure,  I  am  sure  she  would  rather 
have  brought  the  canon ;  but  she  is  always  think- 
ing of  others.  I  told  her  it  was  not  quite  en  regie 
to  bring  one  so  far  out  of  our  own  set ;  but  she 
said,  '  Genius  itself  is  not  en  regie  ;  it  comes  into 
the  world  to  make  new  rules.'  And  one  must 
admit  that." 

"Ay,  to  be  sure,"  said  Lord  Brackenshaw,  in  a 
tone  of  careless  dismissal,  adding,  quickly,  "  For 
my  part,  I  am  not  magnanimous ;  I  should  like  to 
win.  But,  confound  it !  I  never  have  the  chance 
now.  I'm  getting  old  and  idle.  The  young  ones 
beat  me.  As  old  Nestor  says — the  gods  don't 
give  us  every  thing  at  one  time :  I  was  a  young 
fellow  once,  and  now  I  am  getting  an  old  and 
wise  one.  Old,  at  any  rate ;  which  is  a  gift  that 
comes  to  every  body  if  they  live  long  enough,  so 
|t  raises  no  jealousy."  The  Earl  smiled  comforta- 
bly at  his  wife. 

"  Oh,  my  lord,  people  who  have  been  neighbors 
twenty  years  must  not  talk  to  each  other  about 
age,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint.  "  Years,  as  the  Tus- 
cans say,  are  made  for  the  letting  of  houses.  But 
where  is  our  new  neighbor  ?  I  thought  Mr.  G  rand- 
court  was  to  be  here  to-day." 

"  Ah,  by-the-way,  so  he  was.  The  time's  get- 
ting on  too,"  said  his  lordship,  looking  at  his 
watch.  "But  he  only  got  to  Diplow  the  other 
day.  He  came  to  us  on  Tuesday,  and  said  he  had 
been  a  little  bothered.  He  may  have  been  pulled 
in  another  direction.  Why,  Gascoigne!" — the 
Rector  was  just  then  crossing  at  a  little  distance 
with  Gwendolen  on  his  arm,  and  turned  in  com- 
pliance with  the  call — "  this  is  a  little  too  bad ; 
you  not  only  beat  us  yourself,  but  you  bring  up 
your  niece  to  beat  all  the  archeresses." 

"  It  is  rather  scandalous  in  her  to  get  the  bet- 
ter of  elder  members,"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  with 
much  inward  satisfaction,  curling  his  short  upper 
lip.  "  But  it  is  not  my  doing,  my  lord.  I  only 
meant  her  to  make  a  tolerable  figure,  without  sur- 
passing any  one." 

"It  is  not  my  fault  either,"  said  Gwendolen, 
with  pretty  archness.  "  If  I  am  to  aim,  I  can't 
help  hitting." 

"  Ay,  ay,  that  may  be  a  fatal  business  for  some 
people,"  said  Lord  Brackenshaw,  good-humored- 
ly;  then,  taking  out  his  watch  and  looking  at 
Mrs.  Arrowpoint  again,  "The  time's  getting  on, 
as  you  say.  But  Grandcourt  is  always  late.  I 


BOOK  I. — THE  SPOILED  CHILD. 


87 


notice  in  town  he's  always  late,  and  he's  no  bow- 
man— understands  nothing  about  it.  But  I  told 
him  he  must  come ;  he  would  see  the  flower  of 
the  neighborhood  here.  He  asked  about  you — 
had  seen  Arrowpoint's  card.  I  think  you  had 
not  made  his  acquaintance  in  town.  He  has  been 
a  good  deal  abroad.  People  don't  know  him 
much." 

"  No ;  we  are  strangers,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint. 
"But  that  is  not  what  might  have  been  expect- 
ed. For  his  uncle,  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger,  and  I  are 
great  friends  when  we  meet." 

"  I  don't  know ;  uncles  and  nephews  are  not  so 
likely  to  be  seen  together  as  uncles  and  nieces," 
said  his  lordship,  smiling  toward  the  Rector. 
"But  just  come  with  me  one  instant,  Gascoigne, 
will  you  ?  I  want  to  speak  a  word  about  the 
clout-shooting." 

Gwendolen  chose  to  go  too,  and  be  deposited  in 
the  same  group  with  her  mamma  and  aunt  until 
she  had  to  shoot  again.  That  Mr.  Grandcourt 
might,  after  all,  not  appear  on  the  archery  ground, 
had  begun  to  enter  into  Gwendolen's  thought  as 
a  possible  deduction  from  the  completeness  of 
her  pleasure.  Under  all  her  saucy  satire,  pro- 
voked chiefly  by  her  divination  that  her  friends 
thought  of  him  as  a  desirable  match  for  her,  she 
felt  something  very  far  from  indifference  as  to 
the  impression  she  would  make  on  him.  True, 
he  was  not  to  have  the  slightest  power  over  her 
(for  Gwendolen  had  not  considered  that  the  de- 
sire to  conquer  is  itself  a  sort  of  subjection) ;  she 
had  made  up  her  mind  that  he  was  to  be  one 
of  those  complimentary  and  assiduously  admiring 
men  of  whom  even  her  narrow  experience  had 
shown  her  several  with  various  -  colored  beards 
and  various  styles  of  bearing ;  and  the  sense  that 
her  friends  would  want  her  to  think  him  delight- 
ful gave  her  a  resistant  inclination  to  presuppose 
him  ridiculous.  But  that  was  no  reason  why  she 
could  spare  his  presence:  and  even  a  passing 
prevision  of  trouble  in  case  she  despised  and  re- 
fused him  raised  not  the  shadow  of  a  wish  that 
he  should  save  her  that  trouble  by  showing  no 
disposition  to  make  her  an  offer.  Mr.  Grandcourt 
taking  hardly  any  notice  of  her,  and  becoming 
shortly  engaged  to  Miss  Arrowpoint,  was  not  a 
picture  which  flattered  her  imagination. 

Hence  Gwendolen  had  been  all  ear  to  Lord 
Brackenshaw's  mode  of  accounting  for  Grand- 
court's  non-appearance  ;  and  when  he  did  arrive, 
no  consciousness — not  even  Mrs.  Arrowpoint's  or 
Mr.  Gascoigne's  —  was  more  awake  to  the  fact 
than  hers,  although  she  steadily  avoided  looking 
toward  any  point  where  he  was  likely  to  be. 
There  should  be  no  slightest  shifting  of  angles 
to  betray  that  it  was  of  any  consequence  to  her 
whether  the  much-talked-of  Mr.  Mallinger  Grand- 
court  presented  himself  or  not.  She  became  again 


absorbed  in  the  shooting,  and  so  resolutely  ab- 
stained from  looking  round  observantly  that,  even 
supposing  him  to  have  taken  a  conspicuous  place 
among  the  spectators,  it  might  be  clear  she  was 
not  aware  of  him.  And  all  the  while  the  cer- 
tainty that  he  was  there  made  a  distinct  thread 
in  her  consciousness.  Perhaps  her  shooting  was 
the  better  for  it ;  at  any  rate,  it  gained  hi  precis- 
ion, and  she  at  last  raised  a  delightful  storm  of 
clapping  and  applause  by  three  hits  running  in 
the  gold — a  feat  which  among  the  Brackenshaw 
archers  had  not  the  vulgar  reward  of  a  shilling 
poll-tax,  but  that  of  a  special  gold  star  to  be  worn 
on  the  breast.  That  moment  was  not  only  a  hap- 
py one  to  herself — it  was  just  what  her  mamma 
and  her  uncle  would  have  chosen  for  her.  There 
was  a  general  falling  into  ranks  to  give  her  space 
that  she  might  advance  conspicuously  to  receive 
the  gold  star  from  the  hands  of  Lady  Bracken- 
shaw ;  and  the  perfect  movement  of  her  fine  form 
was  certainly  a  pleasant  thing  to  behold  in  the 
clear  afternoon  light  when  the  shadows  were  long 
and  still.  She  was  the  central  object  of  that  pret- 
ty picture,  and  every  one  present  must  gaze  at 
her.  That  was  enough ;  she  herself  was  deter- 
mined to  see  nobody  in  particular,  or  to  turn  her 
eyes  any  way  except  toward  Lady  Brackenshaw, 
but  her  thoughts  undeniably  turned  in  other  ways. 
It  entered  a  little  into  her  pleasure  that  Herr 
Klesmer  must  be  observing  her  at  a  moment 
when  music  was  out  of  the  question,  and  his  su- 
periority very  far  in  the  background ;  for  vanity 
is  as  ill  at  ease  under  indifference  as  tenderness 
is  under  a  love  which  it  can  not  return ;  and  the 
unconquered  Klesmer  threw  a  trace  of  his  malign 
power  even  across  her  pleasant  consciousness  that 
Mr.  Grandcourt  was  seeing  her  to  the  utmost  ad- 
vantage, and  was  probably  giving  her  an  admira- 
tion unmixed  with  criticism.  She  did  not  expect 
to  admire  him,  but  that  was  not  necessary  to  her 
peace  of  mind. 

Gwendolen  met  Lady  Brackenshaw's  gracious 
smile  without  blushing  (which  only  came  to  her 
when  she  was  taken  by  surprise),  but  with  a 
charming  gladness  of  expression,  and  then  bent 
with  easy  grace  to  have  the  star  fixed  near  her 
shoulder.  That  little  ceremony  had  been  over 
long  enough  for  her  to  have  exchanged  playful 
speeches  and  received  congratulations  as  she 
moved  among  the  groups  who  were  now  interest- 
ing themselves  in  the  results  of  the  scoring ;  but 
it  happened  that  she  stood  outside  examining  the 
point  of  an  arrow  with  rather  an  absent  air  when 
Lord  Brackenshaw  came  up  to  her  and  said, 

"  Miss  Harleth,  here  is  a  gentleman  who  is  not 
willing  to  wait  any  longer  for  an  introduction. 
He 'has  been  getting  Mrs.  Davilow  to  send  me 
with  him.  Will  you  allow  me  to  introduce  Mr. 
Mallinger  Grandcourt  ?" 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


BOOK  IL— MEETING  STREAMS. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

The  beginning  of  an  acquaintance,  whether  with 
persons  or  things,  is  to  get  a  definite  outline  for  our 
ignorance. 

MR.  GRANDCOCRT'S  wish  to  be  introduced  had 
no  suddenness  for  Gwendolen ;  but  when  Lord 
Brackenshaw  moved  aside  a  little  for  the  pre- 
figured stranger  to  come  forward,  and  she  felt 
herself  face  to  face  with  the  real  man,  there  was 
a  little  shock  which  flushed  her  cheeks  and  vex- 
atiously  deepened  with  her  consciousness  of  it. 
The  shock  came  from  the  reversal  of  her  expecta- 
tions :  Grandcourt  could  hardly  have  been  more 
unlike  all  her  imaginary  portraits  of  him.  He  was 
slightly  taller  than  herself,  and  their  eyes  seemed 
to  be  on  a  level ;  there  was  not  the  f  aintest  smile 
on  his  face  as  he  looked  at  her,  not  a  trace  of 
self -consciousness  or  anxiety  in  his  bearing ;  when 
he  raised  his  hat  he  showed  an  extensive  baldness 
surrounded  with  a  mere  fringe  of  reddish  blonde 
hair,  but  he  also  showed  a  perfect  hand ;  the  line 
of  feature  from  brow  to  chin  undisguised  by  beard 
was  decidedly  handsome,  with  only  moderate  de- 
partures from  the  perpendicular,  and  the  slight 
whisker  too  was  perpendicular.  It  was  not  possi- 
ble for  a  human  aspect  to  be  freer  from  grimace 
or  solicitous  wrigglings ;  also  it  was  perhaps  not 
possible  for  a  breathing  man  wide  awake  to  look 
less  animated.  The  correct  Englishman,  drawing 
himself  up  from  his  bow  into  rigidity,  assenting 
severely,  and  seeming  to  be  in  a  state  of  internal 
drill,  suggests  a  suppressed  vivacity,  and  may  be 
suspected  of  letting  go  with  some  violence  when 
he  is  released  from  parade ;  but  Grandcourt's 
bearing  had  no  rigidity ;  it  inclined  rather  to  the 
flaccid.  His  complexion  had  a  faded  fairness 
resembling  that  of  an  actress  when  bare  of  the 
artificial  white  and  red;  his  long  narrow  gray 
eyes  expressed  nothing  but  indifference.  At- 
tempts at  description  are  stupid :  who  can  all  at 
once  describe  a  human  being  ?  even  when  he  is 
presented  to  us  we  only  begin  that  knowledge  of 
his  appearance  which  must  be  completed  by  in- 
numerable impressions  under  differing  circum- 
stances. We  recognize  the  alphabet;  we  are  not 
sure  of  the  language.  I  am  only  mentioning  the 
points  that  Gwendolen  saw  by  the  light  of  a  pre- 
pared contrast  in  the  first  minutes  of  her  meeting 
with  Grandcourt:  they  were  summed  up  in  the 
words,  "  He  is  not  ridiculous."  But  forthwith 
Lord  Brackenshaw  was  gone,  and  what  is  called 
conversation  had  begun,  the  first  and  constant 
element  in  it  being  that  Grandcourt  looked  at 
Gwendolen  persistently  with  a  slightly  exploring 
ga/e,  but  without  change  of  expression,  while  she 
only  occasionally  looked  at  him  with  a  flash  of 
observation  a  little  softened  by  coquetry.  Also, 
after  her  answers  there  was  a  longer  or  shorter 
pause  before  he  spoke  again. 

"  I  used  to  think  archery  was  a  great  bore," 
Grandcourt  began.  He  spoke  with  a  fine  accent, 
but  with  a  certain  broken  drawl,  as  of  a  distin- 
guished personage  with  a  distinguished  cold  on 
his  chest. 

"  Are  you  converted  to-day  ?"  said  Gwendolen. 

(Pause,  during  which  she  imagined  various  de- 
grees and  modes  of  opinion  about  herself  that 
might  be  entertained  by  Grandcourt.) 


"  Yes,  since  I  saw  you  shooting.  In  things  of 
this  sort  one  generally  sees  people  missing  and 
simpering." 

"  I  suppose  you  are  a  first-rate  shot  with  a  rifle." 

(Pause,  during  which  Gwendolen,  having  taken 
a  rapid  observation  of  Grandcourt,  made  a  brief 
graphic  description  of  him  to  an  indefinite  hearer.) 

"  I  have  left  off  shooting." 

"  Oh,  then  you  are  a  formidable  person.  Peo- 
ple who  have  done  things  once  and  left  them  off 
make  one  feel  very  contemptible,  as  if  one  were 
using  cast-off  fashions.  I  hope  you  have  not  left 
off  all  follies,  because  I  practice  a  great  many." 

(Pause,  during  which  Gwendolen  made  several 
interpretations  of  her  own  speech.) 

"  What  do  you  call  follies  ?" 

"  Well,  in  general,  I  think  whatever  is  agree- 
able is  called  a  folly.  But  you  have  not  left  off 
hunting,  I  hear." 

S Pause,  wherein  Gwendolen  recalled  what  she 
heard  about  Grandcourt's  position,  and  de- 
cided that  he  was  the  most  aristocratic-looking 
man  she  had  ever  seen.) 

"  One  must  do  something." 

"  And  do  you  care  about  the  turf  ? — or  is  that 
among  the  things  you  have  left  off  ?" 

(Pause,  during  which  Gwendolen  thought  that 
a  man  of  extremely  calm,  cold  manners  might  be 
less  disagreeable  as  a  husband  than  other  men, 
and  not  likely  to  interfere  with  his  wife's  prefer- 
ences.) 

"  I  run  a  horse  now  and  then ;  but  I  don't  go 
in  for  the  thing  as  some  men  do.  Are  you  fond 
of  horses  ?" 

Yes,  indeed :  I  never  like  my  life  so  well  as 
when  I  am  on  horseback,  having  a  great  gallop. 

think  of  nothing.  I  only  feel  myself  strong 
and  happy." 

(Pause,  wherein  Gwendolen  wondered  whether 
Grandcourt  would  like  what  she  said,  but  assured 
herself  that  she  was  not  going  to  disguise  her 
tastes.) 


don't  know.  When  I  am  on  horseback  I 
never  think  of  danger.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  I 
broke  my  bones  I  should  not  feel  it.  I  should  go 
at  any  thing  that  came  in  my  way." 

(Pause,  during  which  Gwendolen  had  run 
through  a  whole  hunting  season  with  two  chosen 
hunters  to  ride  at  will.) 

"  You  would  perhaps  like  tiger-hunting  or  pig- 
sticking. I  saw  some  of  that  for  a  season  or  two  in 
the  East.  Every  thing  here  is  poor  stuff  after  that." 

"  You  are  fond  of  danger,  then  ?" 

(Pause,  wherein  Gwendolen  speculated  on  the 
probability  that  the  men  of  coldest  manners  were 
the  most  adventurous,  and  felt  the  strength  of 
her  own  insight,  supposing  the  question  had  to 
be  decided.) 

"  One  must  have  something  or  other.  But  one 
gets  used  to  it." 

"  I  begin  to  think  I  am  very  fortunate,  because 
every  thing  is  new  to  me :  it  is  only  that  I  can't 
get  enough  of  it.  I  am  not  used  to  any  thing 
except  being  dull,  which  I  should  like  to  leave  off 
as  you  have  left  off  shooting." 

(Pause,  during  which  it  occurred  to  Gwendolen 
that  a  man  of  cold  and  distinguished  manners 


BOOK  II.— MEETING   STREAMS. 


might  possibly  be  a  dull  companion ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  she  thought  that  most  persons  were 
dull,  that  she  had  not  observed  husbands  to  be 
companions,  and  that,  after  all,  she  was  not  going 
to  accept  Grandcourt.) 

"  Why  are  you  dull  ?" 

"This  is  a  dreadful  neighborhood.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  done  in  it.  That  is  why  I  practiced 
my  archery." 

(Pause,  during  which  Gwendolen  reflected  that 
the  life  of  an  unmarried  woman  who  could  not  go 
about  and  had  no  command  of  any  thing  must 
necessarily  be  dull  through  all  the  degrees  of 
comparison  as  time  went  on.) 

"  You  have  made  yourself  queen  of  it.  I  im- 
agine you  will  carry  the  first  prize." 

"  I  don't  know  that.  I  have  great  rivals.  Did 
you  not  observe  how  well  Miss  Arrowpoint  shot  ?" 

(Pause,  wherein  Gwendolen  was  thinking  that 
men  had  been  known  to  choose  some  one  else 
than  the  woman  they  most  admired,  and  recalled 
several  experiences  of  that  kind  in  novels.) 

"  Miss  Arrowpoint  ?    No — that  is,  yes." 

"  Shall  we  go  now  and  hear  what  the  scoring 
says  ?  Every  one  is  going  to  the  other  end  now 
— shall  we  join  them  ?  I  think  my  uncle  is  look- 
ing toward  me.  He  perhaps  wants  me." 

Gwendolen  found  a  relief  for  herself  by  thus 
changing  the  situation:  not  that  the  tete-d-tete 
was  quite  disagreeable  to  her ;  but  while  it  lasted 
she  apparently  could  not  get  rid  of  the  unwont- 
ed flush  in  her  cheeks  and  the  sense  of  surprise 
which  made  her  feel  less  mistress  of  herself  than 
usual.  And  this  Mr.  Grandcourt,  who  seemed  to 
feel  his  own  importance  more  than  he  did  hers — 
a  sort  of  unreasonableness  few  of  us  can  tolerate 
— must  not  take  for  granted  that  he  was  of  great 
moment  td  her,  or  that  because  others  speculated 
on  him  as  a  desirable  match,  she  held  herself  al- 
together at  his  beck.  How  Grandcourt  had  filled 
up  the  pauses  will  be  more  evident  hereafter. 

"  You  have  just  missed  the  gold  arrow,  Gwen- 
dolen," said  Mr.  Gascoigne.  "  Miss  Juliet  Fenn 
scores  eight  above  you." 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  it.  I  should  have  felt 
that  I  was  making  myself  too  disagreeable — tak- 
ing the  best  of  every  thing,"  said  Gwendolen, 
quite  easily. 

It  was  impossible  to  be  jealous  of  Juliet  Fenn 
— a  girl  as  middling  as  mid-day  market  in  every 
thing  but  her  archery  and  her  plainness,  in  which 
last  she  was  noticeably  like  her  father :  under- 
hung and  with  receding  brow  resembling  that  of 
the  more  intelligent  fishes.  (Surely,  considering 
the  importance  which  is  given  to  such  an  accident 
in  female  offspring,  marriageable  men,  or  what  the 
new  English  calls  "  intending  bridegrooms,"  should 
look  at  themselves  dispassionately  in  the  glass, 
since  their  natural  selection  of  a  mate  prettier 
than  themselves  is  not  certain  to  bar  the  effect 
of  their  own  ugliness.) 

There  was  now  a  lively  movement  in  the  min- 
gling groups,  which  carried  the  talk  along  with 
it.  Every  one  spoke  to  every  one  else  by  turns, 
and  Gwendolen,  who  chose  to  see  what  was  going 
on  around  her  now,  observed  that  Grandcourt  was 
having  Klesmer  presented  to  him  by  some  one 
unknown  to  her — a  middle-aged  man  with  dark 
full  face  and  fat  hands,  who  seemed  to  be  on  the 
easiest  terms  with  both,  and  presently  led  the 
way  in  joining  the  Arrowpoints,  whose  acquaint- 
ance had  already  been  made  by  both  him  and 


Grandcourt.  Who  this  stranger  was  she  did  not 
care  much  to  know ;  but  she  wished  to  observe 
what  was  Grandcourt's  manner  toward  others  than 
herself.  Precisely  the  same ;  except  that  he  did 
not  look  much  at  Miss  Arrowpoint,  but  cather  at 
Klesmer,  who  was  speaking  with  animation — now 
stretching  out  his  long  fingers  horizontally,  now 
pointing  downward  with  his  forefinger,  now  fold- 
ing his  arms  and  tossing  his  mane,  while  he  ad- 
dressed himself  first  to  one  and  then  the  other, 
including  Grandcourt,  who  listened  with  an  im- 
passive face  and  narrow  eyes,  his  left  forefinger 
hi  his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  his  right  slightly 
touching  his  thin  whisker. 

"I  wonder  which  style  Miss  Arrowpoint  ad- 
mires most,"  was  a  thought  that  glanced  through 
Gwendolen's  mind,  while  her  eyes  and  lips  gath- 
ered rather  a  mocking  expression.  But  she  would 
not  indulge  her  sense  of  amusement  by  watching 
as  if  she  were  curious,  and  she  gave  all  her  ani- 
mation to  those  immediately  around  her,  deter- 
mined not  to  care  whether  Mr.  Grandcourt  came 
near  her  again  or  not. 

He  did  come,  however,  and  at  a  moment  when 
he  could  propose  to  conduct  Mrs.  Davilow  to  her 
carriage.  "  Shall  we  meet  again  in  the  ball-room  ?" 
she  said,  as  he  raised  his  hat  at  parting.  The 
"  yes"  in  reply  had  the  usual  slight  drawl  and 
perfect  gravity. 

"  You  were  wrong  for  once,  Gwendolen,"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow  during  their  few  minutes'  drive  to 
the  castle. 

"  In  what,  mamma  ?" 

"  About  Mr.  Grandcourt's  appearance  and  man- 
ners. You  can't  find  any  thing  ridiculous  hi  him." 

"  I  suppose  I  could  if  I  tried,  but  I  don't  want 
to  do  it,"  said  Gwendolen,  rather  pettishly ;  and 
her  mamma  was  afraid  to  say  more. 

It  was  the  rule  on  these  occasions  for  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  to  dine  apart,  so  that  the  dinner 
might  make  a  time  of  comparative  ease  and  rest 
for  both.  Indeed,  the  gentlemen  had  a  set  of 
archery  stories  about  the  epicurism  of  the  ladies, 
who  had  somehow  been  reported  to  show  a  revolt- 
ingly  masculine  judgment  in  venison,  even  asking 
for  the  fat — a  proof  of  the  frightful  rate  at  which 
corruption  might  go  on  in  women  but  for  severe 
social  restraint.  And  every  year  the  amiable  Lord 
Brackenshaw,  who  was  something  of  a  ffourmet, 
mentioned  Byron's  opinion  that  a  woman  should 
never  be  seen  eating — introducing  it  with  a  con- 
fidential "  The  fact  is,"  as  if  he  were  for  the  first 
time  admitting  his  concurrence  in  that  sentiment 
of  the  refined  poet. 

In  the  ladies'  dining-room  it  was  evident  that 
Gwendolen  was  not  a  general  favorite  with  her 
own  sex ;  there  were  no  beginnings  of  intimacy 
between  her  and  other  girls,  and  in  conversation 
they  rather  noticed  what  she  said  than  spoke  to 
her  in  free  exchange.  Perhaps  it  was  that  she 
was  not  much  interested  in  them,  and  when  left 
alone  in  their  company  had  a  sense  of  empty 
benches.  Mrs.  Vulcany  once  remarked  that  Miss 
Harleth  was  too  fond  of  the  gentlemen ;  but  we 
know  that  she  was  not  in  the  least  fond  of  them 

he  was  only  fond  of  their  homage — and  wom- 
en did  not  give  her  homage.  The  exception  to 
this  willing  aloofness  from  her  was  Miss  Arrow- 
point,  who  often  managed  unostentatiously  to  be 
by  her  side,  and  talked  to  her  with  quiet  friend- 


'  She  knows,  as  I  do,  that  our  friends  are  ready 


40 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


to  quarrel  over  a  husband  for  us,"  thought  Gwen- 
dolen, "  and  she  is  determined  not  to  enter  into 
the  quarrel." 

"I  think  Miss  Arrowpoint  has  the  best  man- 
ners I  ever  saw,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  when  she 
and  Gwendolen  were  in  a  dressing-room  with 
Mrs.  Gascoigne  and  Anna,  but  at  a  distance  where 
they  could  have  their  talk  apart. 

"  I  wish  I  were  like  her,"  said  Gwendolen. 

"Why?  Are  you  getting  discontented  with 
yourself,  Gwen  ?" 

"  No ;  but  I  am  discontented  w;th  things.  She 
seems  contented." 

"I  am  sure  you  ought  to  be  satisfied  to-day. 
You  must  have  enjoyed  the  shooting.  I  saw  you 
did." 

"  Oh,  that  is  over  now,  and  I  don't  know  what 
will  come  next,"  said  Gwendolen,  stretching  her- 
self with  a  sort  of  moan,  and  throwing  up  her 
arms.  They  were  bare  now :  it  was  the  fashion 
to  dance  in  the  archery  dress,  throwing  off  the 
jacket ;  and  the  simplicity  of  her  white  cashmere 
with  its  border  of  pale  green  set  off  her  form  to 
the  utmost.  A  thin  line  of  gold  round  her  neck, 
and  the  gold  star  on  her  breast,  were  her  only  or- 
naments. Her  smooth  soft  hair  piled  up  into  a 
grand  crown  made  a  clear  line  about  her  brow. 
Sir  Joshua  would  have  been  glad  to  take  her  por- 
trait ;  and  he  would  have  had  an  easier  task  than 
the  historian  at  least  in  this,  that  he  would  not 
have  had  to  represent  the  truth  of  change — only 
to  give  stability  to  one  beautiful  moment. 

"  The  dancing  will  come  next,"  said  Mrs.  Davi- 
low. "  You  are  sure  to  enjoy  that." 

"I  shall  only  dance  in  the  quadrille.  I  told 
Mr.  Clintock  so.  I  shall  not  waltz  or  polk  with 
any  one." 

"  Why  in  the  world  do  you  say  that  all  on  a 
sudden?" 

"I  can't  bear  having  ugly  people  so  near  me." 

"  Whom  do  you  mean  by  ugly  people  ?" 

"  Oh,  plenty." 

"  Mr.  Clintock,  for  example,  is  not  ugly."  Mrs. 
Davilow  dared  not  mention  Grandcourt. 

"  Well,  I  hate  woolen  cloth  touching  me." 

"  Fancy !"  said  Mrs.  Davilow  to  her  sister,  who 
now  came  up  from  the  other  end  of  the  room. 
"  Gwendolen  says  she  will  not  waltz  or  polk." 

"She  is  rather  given  to  whims,  I  think,"  said 
Mrs.  Gascoigne,  gravely.  "  It  would  be  more  be- 
coming in  her  to  behave  as  other  young  ladies 
do  on  such  an  occasion  as  this ;  especially  when 
she  has  had  the  advantage  of  first-rate  dancing 
lessons." 

"Why  should  I  waltz  if  I  don't  like  it,  aunt? 
It  is  not  in  the  Catechism." 

"  My  dear  /"  said  Mrs.  Gascoigne,  in  a  tone  of 
severe  check,  and  Anna  looked  frightened  at 
Gwendolen's  daring.  But  they  all  passed  on 
without  saying  more. 

Apparently  something  had  changed  Gwendo- 
len's mood  since  the  hour  of  exulting  enjoyment 
in  the  archery  ground.  But  she  did  not  look  the 
worse  under  the  chandeliers  in  the  ball-room, 
where  the  soft  splendor  of  the  scene  and  the 
pleasant  odors  from  the  conservatory  could  not 
but  be  soothing  to  the  temper,  when  accompanied 
with  the  consciousness  of  being  pre-eminently 
sought  for.  Hardly  a  dancing  man  but  was  anx- 
ious to  have  her  for  a  partner,  and  each  whom 
she  accepted  was  in  a  state  of  melancholy  remon- 
strance that  she  would  not  waltz  or  polk. 


"  Are  you  under  a  vow,  Miss  Harleth  ?" — "  Why 
are  you  so  cruel  to  us  all  ?" — "  You  waltzed  with 
me  in  February" — "And  you  who  waltz  so  per- 
fectly!"— were  exclamations  not  without  piqu- 
ancy for  her.  The  ladies  who  waltzed  naturally 
thought  that  Miss  Harleth  only  wanted  to  make 
herself  particular ;  but  her  uncle,  when  he  over- 
heard her  refusal,  supported  her  by  saying, 

"Gwendolen  has  usually  good  reasons."  He 
thought  she  was  certainly  more  distinguished  in 
not  waltzing,  and  he  wished  her  to  be  distinguish- 
ed. The  archery  ball  was  intended  to  be  kept  at 
the  subdued  pitch  that  suited  all  dignities,  cler- 
ical and  secular:  it  was  not  an  escapement  for 
youthful  high  spirits,  and  he  himself  was  of  opin- 
ion that  the  fashionable  dances  were  too  much 
of  a  romp. 

Among  the  remonstrant  dancing  men,  how- 
ever, Mr.  Grandcourt  was  not  numbered.  After 
standing  up  for  a  quadrille  with  Miss  Arrow- 
point,  it  seemed  that  he  meant  to  ask  for  no  oth- 
er partner.  Gwendolen  observed  him  frequently 
with  the  Arrowpoints,  but  he  never  took  an  op- 
portunity of  approaching  her.  Mr.  Gascoigne 
was  sometimes  speaking  to  him;  but  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne was  every  where.  It  was  in  her  mind 
now  that  she  would  probably,  after  all,  not  have 
the  least  trouble  about  him :  perhaps  he  had 
looked  at  her  without  any  particular  admiration, 
and  was  too  much  used  to  every  thing  in  the 
world  to  think  of  her  as  more  than  one  of  the 
girls  who  were  invited  in  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try. Of  course !  It  was  ridiculous  of  elders  to 
entertain  notions  about  what  a  man  would  do, 
without  having  seen  him  even  through  a  tele- 
scope. Probably  he  meant  to  marry  Miss  Arrow- 
point.  Whatever  might  come,  she,  Gwendolen, 
was  not  going  to  be  disappointed :  the  affair  was 
a  joke  whichever  way  it  turned,  for  she  had  never 
committed  herself  even  by  a  silent  confidence  in 
any  thing  Mr.  Grandcourt  would  do.  Still,  she  no- 
ticed that  he  did  sometimes  quietly  and  gradually 
change  his  position  according  to  hers,  so  that  he 
could  see  her  whenever  she  was  dancing,  and  if  he 
did  not  admire  her — so  much  the  worse  for  him. 

This  movement  for  the  sake  of  being  in  sight 
of  her  was  more  direct  than  usual  rather  late  in 
the  evening,  when  Gwendolen  had  accepted  Kles- 
mer as  a  partner ;  and  that  wide-glancing  per- 
sonage, who  saw  every  thing  and  nothing  by 
turns,  said  to  her  when  they  were  walking,  "  Mr. 
Grandcourt  is  a  man  of  taste.  He  likes  to  see 
you  dancing." 

"  Perhaps  he  likes  to  look  at  what  is  against 
his  taste,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  light  laugh : 
she  was  quite  courageous  with  Klesmer  now. 
"  He  may  be  so  tired  of  admiring  that  he  likes 
disgiint  for  a  variety." 

"  Those  words  are  not  suitable  to  your  lips," 
said  Klesmer,  quickly,  with  one  of  his  grand 
frowns,  while  he  shook  his  hand  as  if  to  banish 
the  discordant  sounds. 

"  Are  you  as  critical  of  words  as  of  music  ?" 

"  Certainly  I  am.  I  should  require  your  words 
to  be  what  your  face  and  form  are — always  among 
the  meanings  of  a  noble  music." 

"  That  is  a  compliment  as  well  as  a  correction. 
I  am  obliged  for  both.  But  do  you  know  I  am 
bold  enough  to  wish  to  correct  you;  and  require 
you  to  understand  a  joke  ?" 

"One  may  understand  jokes  without  liking 
them,"  said  the  terrible  Klesmer.  "  I  have  had 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


41 


opera  books  sent  me  full  of  jokes ;  it  was  just 
because  I  understood  them  that  I  did  not  like 
them.  The  comic  people  are  ready  to  challenge 
a  man  because  he  looks  grave.  '  You  don't  see 
the  witticism,  Sir  ?'  '  No,  Sir ;  but  I  see  what  you 
meant.'  Then  I  am  what  we  call  ticketed  as  a 
fellow  without  esprit.  But  in  fact,"  said  Kles- 
mer,  suddenly  dropping  from  his  quick  narrative 
to  a  reflective  tone,  with  an  impressive  frown,  "  I 
am  very  sensible  to  wit  and  humor." 

"I  am  glad  you  tell  me  that,"  said  Gwendolen, 
not  without  some  wickedness  of  intention.  But 
Klesmer's  thoughts  had  flown  off  on  the  wings  of 
his  own  statement,  as  their  habit  was,  and  she 
had  the  wickedness  all  to  herself.  "  Pray  who  is 
that  standing  near  the  card-room  door  ?"  she  went 
on,  seeing  there  the  same  stranger  with  whom 
Klesmer  had  been  in  animated  talk  on  the  arch- 
ery ground.  "  He  is  a  friend  of  yours,  I  think." 

"No,  no;  an  amateur  I  have  seen  in  town: 
Lush,  a  Mr.  Lush — too  fond  of  Meyerbeer  and 
Scribe — too  fond  of  the  mechanical-dramatic." 

"Thanks.  I  wanted  to  know  whether  you 
thought  his  face  and  f orm  required  that  his  words 
should  be  among  the  meanings  of  noble  music." 
Klesmer  was  conquered,  and  flashed  at  her  a  de- 
lightful smile  which  made  them  quite  friendly 
until  she-  begged  to  be  deposited  by  the  side  of 
her  mamma. 

Three  minutes  afterward  her  preparations  for 
Grandcourt's  indifference  were  all  canceled.  Turn- 
ing her  head  after  some  remark  to  her  mother, 
she  found  that  he  had  made  his  way  up  to  her. 

"  May  I  ask  if  you  are  tired  of  dancing,  Miss 
Harleth  ?"  he  began,  looking  down  with  his  for- 
mer unperturbed  expression. 

"  Not  in  the  least." 

"  Will  you  do  me  the  honor — the  next — or  an- 
other quadrille  ?" 

"  I  should  have  been  very  happy,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, looking  at  her  card,  "  but  I  am  engaged  for 
the  next  to  Mr.  Clintock — and  indeed  I  perceive 
that  I  am  doomed  for  every  quadrille :  I  have  not 
one  to  dispose  of."  She  was  not  sorry  to  punish 
Mr.  Grandcourt's  tardiness,  yet  at  the  same  time 
she  would  have  liked  to  dance  with  him.  She 
gave  him  a  charming,  smile  as  she  looked  up  to 
deliver  her  answer,  and  he  stood  still  looking 
down  at  her  with  no  smile  at  all. 

"  I  am  unfortunate  in  being  too  late,"  he  said, 
after  a  moment's  pause. 

"  It  seemed  to  me  that  you  did  not  care  for 
dancing,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I  thought  it  might 
be  one  of  the  things  you  had  left  off." 

"Yes,  but  I  have  not  begun  to  dance  with 
you,"  said  Grandcourt.  Always  there  was  the 
same  pause  before  he  took  up  his  cue.  "  You 
make  dancing  a  new  thing — as  you  make  archery." 

"  Is  novelty  always  agreeable  ?" 

"  No,  no — not  always." 

"  Then  I  don't  know  whether  to  feel  flattered 
or  not.  When  you  had  once  danced  with  me 
there  would  be  no  more  novelty  in  it." 

"  On  the  contrary.  There  would  probably  be 
much  more." 

"  That  is  deep.     I  don't  understand." 

"Is  it  difficult  to  make  Miss  Harleth  under- 
stand her  power?"  Here  Grandcourt  had  turn- 
ed to  Mrs.  Davilow,  who,  smiling  gently  at  her 
daughter,  said, 

"I  think  she  does  not  generally  strike  people 
as  slow  to  understand." 


"  Mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a  deprecating 
tone,  "I  am  adorably  stupid,  and  want  every 
thing  explained  to  me — when  the  meaning  is 
pleasant." 

"  If  you  are  stupid,  I  admit  that  stupidity  is 
adorable,"  returned  Grandcourt,  after  the  usual 
pause,  and  without  change  of  tone.  But  clearly 
he  knew  what  to  say. 

"I  begin  .to  think  that  my  cavalier  has  forgot- 
ten me,"  Gwendolen  observed,  after  a  little  while. 
"  I  see  the  quadrille  is  being  formed." 

"  He  deserves  to  be  renounced,"  said  Grandcourt. 

"  I  think  he  is  very  pardonable,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen. 

"  There  must  have  been  some  misunderstand- 
ing," said  Mrs.  Davilow.  "  Mr.  Clintock  was  too 
anxious  about  the  engagement  to  have  forgot- 
ten it." 

But  now  Lady  Brackenshaw  came  up  and  said : 
"  Miss  Harleth,  Mr.  Clintock  has  charged  me  to  ex- 
press to  you  his  deep  regret  that  he  was  obliged 
to  leave  without  having  the  pleasure  of  dancing 
with  you  again.  An  express  came  from  his  fa- 
ther the  archdeacon:  something  important:  he 
was  obliged  to  go.  He  was  au  descspoir." 

"  Oh,  he  was  very  good  to  remember  the  en- 
gagement under  the  circumstances,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen. "I  am  sorry  he  was  called  away."  It 
was  easy  to  be  politely  sorrowful  on  so  felicitous 
an  occasion. 

"  Then  I  can  profit  by  Mr.  Clintock's  misfor- 
tune ?"  said  Grandcourt.  "  May  I  hope  that  you 
will  let  me  take  his  place  ?" 

"  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  dance  the  next  qua- 
drille with  you." 

The  appropriateness  of  the  event  seemed  an 
augury,  and  as  Gwendolen  stood  up  for  the  qua- 
drille with  Grandcourt,  there  was  a  revival  in  her 
of  the  exultation — the  sense  of  carrying  every 
thing  before  her — which  she  had  felt  earlier  in 
the  day.  No  man  could  have  walked  through 
the  quadrille  with  more  irreproachable  ease  than 
Grandcourt ;  and  the  absence  of  all  eagerness  in 
his  attention  to  her  suited  his  partner's  taste. 
She  was  now  convinced  that  he  meant  to  distin- 
guish her,  to  mark  his  admiration  of  her  in  a  no- 
ticeable way ;  and  it  began  to  appear  probable 
that  she  would  have  it  in  her  power  to  reject  him, 
whence  there  was  a  pleasure  in  reckoning  up  the 
advantages  which  would  make  her  rejection  splen- 
did, and  in  giving  Mr.  Grandcourt  his  utmost  value. 
It  was  also  agreeable  to  divine  that  his  exclusive 
selection  of  her  to  dance  with,  from  among  all 
the  unmarried  ladies  present,  would  attract  ob- 
servation ;  though  she  studiously  avoided  seeing 
this,  and  at  the  end  of  the  quadrille  walked  away 
on  Grandcourt's  arm  as  if  she  had  been  one  of 
the  shortest-sighted  instead  of  the  longest  and 
widest  sighted  of  mortals.  They  encountered  Miss 
Arrowpoint,  who  was  standing  with  Lady  Brack- 
enshaw and  a  group  of  gentlemen.  The  heiress 
looked  at  Gwendolen  invitingly,  and  said,  "  I  hope 
you  will  vote  with  us,  Miss  Harleth,  and  Mr. 
Grandcourt  too,  though  he  is  not  an  archer." 
Gwendolen  and  Grandcourt  paused  to  join  the 
group,  and  found  that  the  voting  turned  on  the 
project  of  a  picnic  archery  meeting  to  be  held  in 
Cardell  Chase,  where  the  evening  entertainment 
would  be  more  poetic  than  a  ball  under  chande- 
liers— a  feast  of  sunset  lights  along  the  glades 
and  through  the  branches  and  over  the  solemn 
tree-tops. 


42 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Gwendolen  thought  the  scheme  delightful — 
equal  to  playing  Robin  Hood  and  Maid  Marian ; 
and  Mr.  Grandcourt,  when  appealed  to  a  second 
time,  said  it  was  a  thing  to  be  done  ;  whereupon 
Mr.  Lush,  who  stood  behind  Lady  Brackenshaw's 
elbow,  drew  Gwendolen's  notice  by  saying,  with 
a  familiar  look  and  tone,  to  Grandcourt,  "  Diplow 
would  be  a  good  place  for  the  meeting,  and  more 
convenient :  there's  a  fine  bit  between  the  oaks 
toward  the  north  gate." 

Impossible  to  look  more  unconscious  of  being 
addressed  than  Grandcourt ;  but  Gwendolen  took 
a  new  survey  of  the  speaker,  deciding,  first,  that 
he  must  be  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  tenant 
of  Diplow,  and  secondly,  that  she  would  never, 
if  she  could  help  it,  let  him  come  within  a  yard 
of  her.  She  was  subject  to  physical  antipathies, 
and  Mr.  Lush's  prominent  eyes,  fat  though  not 
clumsy  figure,  and  strong  black  gray-besprinkled 
hair  of  frizzy  thickness,  which,  with  the  rest  of 
his  prosperous  person,  was  enviable  to  many, 
created  one  of  the  strongest  of  her  antipathies. 
To  be  safe  from  his  looking  at  her,  she  mur- 
mured to  Grandcourt,  "  I  should  like  to  continue 
walking." 

He  obeyed  immediately ;  but  when  they  were 
thus  away  from  any  audience,  he  spoke  no  word 
for  several  minutes,  and  she,  out  of  a  half- 
amused,  half-serious  inclination  for  experiment, 
would  not  speak  first.  They  turned  into  the 
large  conservatory,  beautifully  lit  up  with  Chi- 
nese lamps.  The  other  couples  there  were  at  a 
distance  which  would  not  have  interfered  with 
any  dialogue,  but  still  they  walked  in  silence  un- 
til they  had  reached  the  farther  end,  where  there 
was  a  flush  of  pink  light,  and  the  second  wide 
opening  into  the  ball-room.  Grandcourt,  when 
they  had  half  turned  round,  paused  and  said, 
languidly, 

"  Do  you  like  this  kind  of  thing  ?" 

If  the  situation  had  been  described  to  Gwen- 
dolen half  an  hour  before,  she  would  have  laugh- 
ed heartily  at  it,  and  could  only  have  imagined 
herself  returning  a  playful,  satirical  answer.  But 
for  some  mysterious  reason — it  was  a  mystery  of 
which  she  had  a  faint  wondering  consciousness — 
she  dared  not  be  satirical :  she  had  begun  to  feel 
a  wand  over  her  that  made  her  afraid  of  offend- 
ing Grandcourt. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  quietly,  without  considering 
what  "  kind  of  thing"  was  meant — whether  the 
flowers,  the  scents,  the  ball  in  general,  or  this 
episode  of  walking  with  Mr.  Grandcourt  in  par- 
ticular. And  they  returned  along  the  conserva- 
tory without  farther  interpretation.  She  then 
proposed  to  go  and  sit  down  in  her  old  place, 
and  they  walked  among  scattered  couples  pre- 
paring for  the  waltz  to  the  spot  where  Mrs.  Dav- 
ilow  had  been  seated  all  the  evening.  As  they 
approached  it  her  seat  was  vacant,  but  she  was 
coming  toward  it  again,  and,  to  Gwendolen's  shud- 
dering annoyance,  with  Mr.  Lush  at  her  elbow. 
There  was  no  avoiding  the  confrontation:  her 
mamma  came  close  to  her  before  they,  had  reach- 
ed the  seats,  and,  after  a  quiet  greeting  smile, 
said,  innocently,  "  Gwendolen  dear,  let  me  pre- 
sent Mr.  Lush  to  you."  Having  just  made  the 
acquaintance  of  this  personage  as  an  intimate 
and  constant  companion  of  Mr.  Grandcourt's,  Mrs. 
Davilow  imagined  it  altogether  desirable  that  her 
daughter  also  should  make  the  acquaintance. 

It  was  hardly  a  bow  that  Gwendolen  gave — 


rather,  it  was  the  slightest  forward  sweep  of  the 
head  away  from  the  physiognomy  that  inclined 
itself  toward  her,  and  she  immediately  moved  to- 
ward her  seat,  saying,  "  I  want  to  put  on  my 
burnous."  No  sooner  had  she  reached  it  than 
Mr.  Lush  was  there,  and  had  the  burnous  in  his 
hand :  to  annoy  this  supercilious  young  lady,  he 
would  incur  the  offense  of  forestalling  Grand- 
court  ;  and,  holding  up  the  garment  close  to  Gwen- 
dolen, he  said,  "Pray  permit  me?"  But  she, 
wheeling  away  from  him  as  if  he  had  been  a  mud- 
dy hound,  glided  on  to  the  ottoman,  saying,  "  No, 
thank  you." 

A  man  who  forgave  this  would  have  much 
Christian  feeling,  supposing  he  had  intended  to 
be  agreeable  to  the  young  lady ;  but  before  he 
seized  the  burnous  Mr.  Lush  had  ceased  to  have 
that  intention.  Grandcourt  quietly  took  the  dra- 
pery from  him,  and  Mr.  Lush,  with  a  slight  bow, 
moved  away. 

"  You  had  perhaps  better  put  it  on,"  said  Mr. 
Grandcourt,  looking  down  on  her  without  change 
of  expression. 

"Thanks;  perhaps  it  would  be  wise,"  said 
Gwendolen,  rising,  and  submitting  very  graceful- 
ly to  take  the  burnous  on  her  shoulders. 

After  that  Mr.  Grandcourt  exchanged  a  few 
polite  speeches  with  Mrs.  Davilow,  and,  in  taking 
leave,  asked  permission  to  call  at  Offendene  the 
next  day.  He  was  evidently  not  offended  by  the 
insult  directed  toward  his  friend.  Certainly 
Gwendolen's  refusal  of  the  burnous  from  Mr. 
Lush  was  open  to  the  interpretation  that  she 
wished  to  receive  it  from  Mr.  Grandcourt.  But 
she,  poor  child,  had  had  no  design  in  this  action, 
and  was  simply  following  her  antipathy  and  in- 
clination, confiding  in  them  as  she  did  in  the  more 
reflective  judgments  into  which  they  entered  as 
sap  into  leafage.  Gwendolen  had  no  sense  that 
these  men  were  dark  enigmas  to  her,  or  that  she 
needed  any  help  in  drawing  conclusions  about 
them — Mr.  Grandcourt  at  least.  The  chief  ques- 
tion was,  how  far  his  character  and  ways  might 
answer  her  wishes ;  and  unless  she  were  satisfied 
about  that,  she  had  said  to  herself  that  she  would 
not  accept  his  offer. 

Could  there  be  a  slenderer,  more  insignificant 
thread  in  human  history  than  this  consciousness 
of  a  girl,  busy  with  her  small  inferences  of  the 
way  in  which  she  could  make  her  life  pleasant  ? 
— in  a  time,  too,  when  ideas  were  with  fresh  vig- 
or making  armies  of  themselves,  and  the  uni- 
versal kinship  was  declaring  itself  fiercely :  when 
women  on  the  other  side  of  the  world  would  not 
mourn  for  the  husbands  and  sons  who  died  brave- 
ly in  a  common  cause,  and  men  stinted  of  bread 
on  our  side  of  the  world  heard  of  that  willing 
loss  and  were  patient :  a  time  when  the  soul  of 
man  was  waking  to  pulses  which  had  for  centu- 
ries been  beating  in  him  unheard,  until  their  full 
sum  made  a  new  life  of  terror  or  of  joy. 

What  in  the  midst  of  that  mighty  drama  are 
girls  and  their  blind  visions  ?  They  are  the  Yea 
or  Nay  of  that  good  for  which  men  are  enduring 
and  fighting.  In  these  delicate  vessels  is  borne 
onward  through  the  ages  the  treasure  of  human 
affections. 


BOOK   II.— MEETING   STREAMS. 


43 


CHAPTER  XII. 

"  O  gentlemen,  the  time  of  life  is  short ; 
To  spend  that  shortness  basely  were  too  long, 
If  Hie  did  ride  upon  a  dial's  point, 
Still  ending  at  the  arrival  of  an  hour." 

— SIIAKSPEABE:  lienry  IV. 

ON  the  second  day  after  the  Archery  Meeting, 
Mr.  Henleigh  Mallinger  Grandcourt  was  at  his 
breakfast  table  with  Mr.  Lush.  Every  thing 
around  them  was  agreeable :  the  summer  air 
through  the  open  windows,  at  which  the  dogs 
could  walk  in  from  the  old  green  turf  on  the 
lawn ;  the  soft,  purplish  coloring  of  the  park  be- 
yond, stretching  toward  a  mass  of  bordering 
wood ;  the  still  life  in  the  room,  which  seemed 
the  stiller  for  its  sober  antiquated  elegance,  as  if 
it  kept  a  conscious,  well-bred  silence,  unlike  the 
restlessness  of  vulgar  furniture. 

Whether  the  gentlemen  were  agreeable  to  each 
other  was  less  evident.  Mr.  Grandcourt  had 
drawn  his  chair  aside  so  as  to  face  the  lawn, 
and,  with  his  left  leg  over  another  chair,  and  his 
right  elbow  on  the  table,  was  smoking  a  large 
cigar,  while  his  companion  was  still  eating.  The 
dogs — half  a  dozen  of  various  kinds  were  moving 
lazily  in  and  out,  or  taking  attitudes  of  brief  at- 
tention—  gave  a  vacillating  preference  first  to 
one  gentleman,  then  to  the  other ;  being  dogs  in 
such  good  circumstances  that  they  could  play  at 
hunger,  and  liked  to  be  served  with  delicacies 
which  they  declined  to  put  into  their  mouths ;  all 
except  Fetch,  the  beautiful  liver-colored  water- 
spaniel,  which  sat  with  its  fore-paws  firmly  plant- 
ed and  its  expressive  brown  face  turned  upward, 
watching  Grandcourt  with  unshaken  constancy. 
He  held  in  his  lap  a  tiny  Maltese  dog  with  a  tiny 
silver  collar  and  bell,  and  when  he  had  a  hand 
unused  by  cigar  or  coffee-cup,  it  rested  on  this 
small  parcel  of  animal  warmth.  I  fear  that 
Fetch  was  jealous,  and  wounded  that  her  master 
gave  her  no  word  or  look ;  at  last  it  seemed  that 
she  could  bear  this  neglect  no  longer,  and  she 
gently  put  her  large  silky  paw  on  her  master's 
leg.  Grandcourt  looked  at  her  with  unchanged 
face  for  half  a  minute,  and  then  took  the  trouble 
to  lay  down  his  cigar  while  he  lifted  the  unimpas- 
sioned  Fluff  close  to  his  chin  and  gave  it  caress- 
ing pats,  all  the  while  gravely  watching  Fetch, 
who,  poor  thing,  whimpered  interruptedly,  as  if 
trying  to  repress  that  sign  of  discontent,  and  at 
last  rested  her  head  beside  the  appealing  paw, 
looking  up  with  piteous  beseeching.  So,  at  least, 
a  lover  of  dogs  must  have  interpreted  Fetch,  and 
Grandcourt  kept  so  many  dogs  that  he  was  reput- 
ed to  love  them ;  at  any  rate,  his  impulse  to  act 
just  in  this  way  started  from  such  an  interpreta- 
tion. But  when  the  amusing  anguish  burst  forth 
in  a  howling  bark,  Grandcourt  pushed  Fetch  down 
without  speaking,  and,  depositing  Fluff  carelessly 
on  the  table  (where  his  black  nose  predominated 
over  a  salt-cellar),  began  to  look  at  his  cigar,  and 
found,  with  some  annoyance  against  Fetch  as  the 
cause,  that  the  brute  of  a  cigar  required  relight- 
ing. Eetch,  having  begun  to  wail,  found,  like 
others  of  her  sex,  that  it  was  not  easy  to  leave 
off ;  indeed,  the  second  howl  was  a  louder  one, 
and  the  third  was  like  unto  it. 

"  Turn  out  that  brute,  will  you  ?"  said  Grand- 
court  to  Lush,  without  raising  his  voice  or  look- 
ing at  him — as  if  he  counted  on  attention  to  the 
smallest  sign. 

And   Lush    immediately    rose,    lifted   Fetch, 


though  she  was  rather  heavy  and^  he  was  not 
fond  of  stooping,  and  carried  her  out,  disposing 
of  her  in  some  way  that  took  him  a  couple  of 
minutes  before  he  returned.  He  then  lit  a  cigar, 
placed  himself  at  an  angle  where  he  could  see 
Grandcourt's  face  without  turning,  and  presently 
said, 

"  Shall  you  ride  or  drive  to  Quetcham  to-day  ?" 

"  I  am  not  going  to  Quetcham." 

"  You  did  not  go  yesterday." 

Grandcourt  smoked  in  silence  for  half  a  min- 
ute, and  then  said, 

"  I  suppose  you  sent  my  card  and  inquiries  ?" 

"  I  went  myself  at  four,  and  said  you  were  sure 
to  be  there  shortly.  They  would  suppose  some 
accident  prevented  you  from  fulfilling  the  inten- 
tion. Especially  if  you  go  to-day." 

Silence  for  a  couple  of  minutes.  Then  Grand- 
court  said,  "  What  men  are  invited  here  with  their 
wives  ?" 

Lush  drew  out  a  note-book.  "  The  Captain  and 
Mrs.  Torrington  come  next  week.  Then  there  are 
Mr.  Hollis,  and  Lady  Flora,  and  the  Cushats,  and 
the  Gogoffs." 

"  Rather  a  ragged  lot,"  remarked  Grandcourt, 
after  a  while.  "  Why  did  you  ask  the  Gogoffs  ? 
When  you  write  invitations  in  my  name,  be  good 
enough  to  give  me  a  list,  instead  of  bringing  down 
a  giantess  on  me  without  my  knowledge.  She 
spoils  the  look  of  the  room." 

"You  invited  the  Gogoffs  yourself  when  you 
met  them  in  Paris." 

'What  has  my  meeting  them  in  Paris  to  do 
with  it  ?  I  told  you  to  give  me  a  list." 

Grandcourt,  like  many  others,  had  two  remark- 
ably different  voices.  Hitherto  we  have  heard 
him  speaking  in  a  superficial  interrupted  drawl 
suggestive  chiefly  of  languor  and  ennui.  But  this 
last  brief  speech  was  uttered  in  subdued,  inward, 
yet  distinct  tones,  which  Lush  had  long  been 
used  to  recognize  as  the  expression  of  a  peremp- 
tory will. 

"  Are  there  any  other  couples  you  would  like 
to  invite  ?" 

"Yes;  think  of  some  decent  people,  with  a 
daughter  or  two.  And  one  of  your  damned  mu- 
sicians. But  not  a  comic  fellow." 

"  I  wonder  if  Klesmer  would  consent  to  come  to 
us  when  he  leaves  Quetcham.  Nothing  but  first- 
rate  music  will  go  down  with  Miss  Arrowpoint." 

Lush  spoke  carelessly,  but  he  was  really  seiz- 
ing an  opportunity  and  fixing  an  observant  look 
on  Grandcourt,  who  now  for  the  first,  time  turned 
his  eyes  toward  his  companion,  but  slowly,  and 
without  speaking  until  he  had  given  two  long 
luxurious  puffs,  when  he  said,  perhaps  in  a  lower 
tone  than  ever,  but  with  a  perceptible  edge  of 
contempt, 

"  What  in  the  name  of  nonsense  have  I  to  do 
with  Miss  ArrQwpoint  and  her  music  ?" 

"  Well,  something,"  said  Lush,  jocosely.  "  You 
need  not  give  yourself  much  trouble,  perhaps. 
But  some  forms  must  be  gone  through  before  a 
man  can  marry  a  million." 

"  Very  likely.  But  I  am  not  going  to  marry  a 
million." 

"That's  a  pity — to  fling  away  an  opportunity 
of  this  sort,  and  knock  down  your  own  plans." 

"  Your  plans,  I  suppose  you  mean." 

"  You  have  some  debts,  you  know,  and  things 
may  turn  out  inconveniently,  after  all.  The  heir- 
ship  is  not  absolutely  certain." 


44 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Grandcourt  did  not  answer,  and  Lush  went  on. 

"It  really* is  a  fine  opportunity.  The  father 
and  mother  ask  for  nothing  better,  I  can  see,  and 
the  daughter's  looks  and  manners  require  no  al- 
lowances, any  more  than  if  she  hadn't  a  sixpence. 
She  is  not  beautiful ;  but  equal  to  carrying  any 
rank.  And  she  is  not  likely  to  refuse  such  pros- 
pects as  you  can  offer  her." 

"  Perhaps  not." 

"  The  father  and  mother  would  let  you  do  any 
thing  you  liked  with  them." 

"But  I  should  not  like  to  do  any  thing  with 
them." 

Here  it  was  Lush  who  made  a  little  pause  be- 
fore speaking  again,  and  then  he  said,  in  a  deep 
voice  of  remonstrance,  "  Good  God,  Grandcourt ! 
after  your  experience,  will  you  let  a  whim  inter- 
fere with  your  comfortable  settlement  in  life  ?" 

"  Spare  your  oratory.  I  know  what  I  am  going 
to  do." 

"  What  ?"  Lush  put  down  his  cigar  and  thrust 
his  hands  into  his  side  pockets,  as  if  he  had  to 
face  something  exasperating,  but  meant  to  keep 
his  temper. 

"  I  am  going  to  marry  the  other  girl." 

"Have  you  fallen  in  love?"  This  question 
carried  a  strong  sneer. 

"  I  am  going  to  marry  her." 

"  You  have  made  her  an  offer  already,  then  ?" 

"No." 

"  She  is  a  young  lady  with  a  will  of  her  own,  I 
fancy.  Extremely  well  fitted  to  make  a  rumpus. 
She  would  know  what  she  liked." 

"  She  doesn't  like  you,"  said  Grandcourt,  with 
the  ghost  of  a  smile. 

"Perfectly  true,"  said  Lush ;  adding  again,  in  a 
markedly  sneering  tone,  "  However,  if  you  and  she 
are  devoted  to  each  other,  that  will  be  enough." 

Grandcourt  took  no  notice  of  this  speech,  but 
sipped  his  coffee,  rose,  and  strolled  out  on  the 
lawn,  all  the  dogs  following  him. 

Lush  glanced  after  him  a  moment,  then  re- 
sumed his  cigar  and  lit  it,  but  smoked  slowly, 
consulting  his  beard  with  inspecting  eyes  and 
fingers,  till  he  finally  stroked  it  with  an  air  of 
having  arrived  at  some  conclusion,  and  said,  hi  a 
subdued  voice, 

"  Check,  old  boy  !" 

Lush,  being  a  man  of  some  ability,  had  not 
known  Grandcourt  for  fifteen  years  without  learn- 
ing what  sort  of  measures  were  useless  with  him, 
though  what  sort  might  be  useful  remained  often 
dubious.  In  the  beginning  of  his  career  he  held 
a  fellowship,  and  was  near  taking  orders  for  the 
sake  of  a  college  living,  but  not  being  fond  of 
that  prospect,  accepted  instead  the  office  of  trav- 
eling companion  to  a  marquess,  and  afterward  to 
young  Grandcourt,  who  had  lost  his  father  early, 
and  who  found  Lush  so  convenient  that  he  had 
allowed  him  to  become  prime  minister  in  all  his 
more  personal  affairs.  The  habit  of  fifteen  years 
had  made  Grandcourt  more  and  more  in  need  of 
Lush's  handiness,  and  Lush  more  and  more  in 
need  of  the  lazy  luxury  to  which  his  transactions 
on  behalf  of  Grandcourt  made  no  interruption 
worth  reckoning.  I  can  not  say  that  the  same 
lengthened  habit  had  intensified  Grandcourt's 
want  of  respect  for  his  companion,  since  that 
want  had  been  absolute  from  the  beginning,  but 
it  had  confirmed  his  sense  that  he  might  kick 
Lush  if  he  chose— only  he  never  did  choose  to 
kick  any  animal,  because  the  act  of  kicking  is  a 


compromising  attitude,  and  a  gentleman's  dogs 
should  be  kicked  for  him.  He  only  said  things 
which  might  have  exposed  himself  to  be  kicked 
if  his  confidant  had  been  a  man  of  independent 
spirit.  But  what  son  of  a  vicar  who  has  stinted 
his  wife  and  daughters  of  calico  in  order  to  send 
his  male  offspring  to  Oxford  can  keep  an  inde- 
pendent spirit  when  he  is  bent  on  dining  with 
high  discrimination,  riding  good  horses,  living 
generally  in  the  most  luxuriant  honey-blossomed 
clover — and  all  without  working  ?  Mr.  Lush  had 
passed  for  a  scholar  once,  and  had  still  a  sense 
of  scholarship  when  he  was  not  trying  to  remem- 
ber much  of  it ;  but  the  bachelors'  and  other  arts 
which  soften  manners  are  a  time-honored  prep- 
aration for  sinecures ;  and  Lush's  present  com- 
fortable provision  was  as  good  as  a  sinecure  in 
not  requiring  more  than  the  odor  of  departed 
learning.  He  was  not  unconscious  of  being  held 
kickable,  but  he  preferred  counting  that  estimate 
among  the  peculiarities  of  Grandcourt's  character, 
which  made  one  of  his  incalculable  moods  or  judg- 
ments as  good  as  another.  Since  in  his  own 
opinion  he  had  never  done  a  bad  action,  it  did 
not  seem  necessary  to  consider  whether  he  should 
be  likely  to  commit  one  if  his  love  of  ease  re- 
quired it.  Lush's  love  of  ease  was  well  satisfied 
at  present,  and  if  his  puddings  were  rolled  toward 
him  in  the  dust,  he  took  the  inside  bits  and  found 
them  relishing. 

This  morning,  for  example,  though  he  had  en- 
countered more  annoyance  than  usual,  he  went  to 
his  private  sitting-room  and  played  a  good  hour 
on  the  violoncello. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
"Philistia,  be  thou  glad  of  me!" 
GRANDCOURT  having  made  up  his  mind  to  mar- 
ry Miss  Harleth,  showed  a  power  of  adapting 
means  to  ends.  During  the  next  fortnight  there 
was  hardly  a  day  on  which  by  some  arrangement 
or  other  he  did  not  see  her,  or  prove  by  emphatic 
attentions  that  she  occupied  his  thoughts.  His 
cousin,  Mrs.  Torrington,  was  now  doing  the  honors 
of  his  house,  so  that  Mrs.  Davilow  and  Gwendo- 
len could  be  invited  to  a  large  party  at  Diplow,  in 
which  there  were  many  witnesses  how  the  host 
distinguished  the  dowerless  beauty,  and  showed 
no  solicitude  about  the  heiress.  The  world — I 
mean  Mr.  Gascoigne  and  all  the  families  worth 
speaking  of  within  visiting  distance  of  Pennicote 
— felt  an  assurance  on  the  subject  which  in  the 
Rector's  mind  converted  itself  into  a  resolution  to 
do  his  duty  by  his  niece  and  sec  that  the  settle- 
ments were  adequate.  Indeed,  the  wonder  to  him 
and  Mrs.  Davilow  was  that  the  offer  for  which  so 
many  suitable  occasions  presented  themselves  had 
not  been  already  made ;  and  in  this  wonder  Grand- 
court  himself  was  not  without  a  share.  When  he 
had  told  his  resolution  to  Lush,  he  had  thought 
that  the  affair  would  be  concluded  more  quickly, 
and,  to  his  own  surprise,  he  had  repeatedly  prom- 
ised himself  in  a  morning  that  he  would  to-day 
give  Gwendolen  the  opportunity  of  accepting  him, 
and  had  found  in  the  evening  that  the  necessary 
formality  was  still  unaccomplished.  This  remark- 
able fact  served  to  heighten  his  determination  on 
another  day.  He  had  never  admitted  to  himself 
that  Gwendolen  might  refuse  him,  but — Heaven 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


45 


help  us  all ! — we  are  often  unable  to  act  on  our 
certainties ;  our  objection  to  a  contrary  issue  (were 
it  possible)  is  so  strong  that  it  rises  like  a  spectral 
illusion  between  us  and  our  certainty :  we  are  ra- 
tionally sure  that  the  blind-worm  can  not  bite  us 
mortally,  but  it  would  be  so  intolerable  to  be  bit- 
ten, and  the  creature  has  a  biting  look — we  de- 
cline to  handle  it. 

He  had  asked  leave  to  have  a  beautiful  horse  of 
his  brought  for  Gwendolen  to  ride.  Mrs.  Davilow 
was  to  accompany  her  in  the  carriage,  and  they 
were  to  go  to  Diplow  to  lunch,  Grandcourt  con- 
ducting them.  It  was  a  fine  mid-harvest  tune, 
not  too  warm  for  a  noonday  ride  of  five  miles  to 
be  delightful :  the  poppies  glowed  on  the  borders 
of  the  fields,  there  was  enough  breeze  to  move 
gently  like  a  social  spirit  among  the  ears  of  uncut 
corn,  and  to  wing  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  across 
the  soft  gray  downs ;  here  the  sheaves  were  stand- 
ing, there  the  horses  were  straining  their  muscles 
under  the  last  load  from  a  wide  space  of  stubble, 
but  every  where  the  green  pastures  made  a  broader 
setting  for  the  corn  fields,  and  the  cattle  took  their 
rest  under  wide  branches.  The  road  lay  through 
a  bit  of  country  where  the  dairy-farms  looked 
much  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  our  forefathers 
— where  peace  and  permanence  seemed  to  find  a 
home  away  from  the  busy  change  that  sent  the 
railway  tram  flying  in  the  distance. 

But  the  spirit  of  peace  and  permanence  did  not 
penetrate  poor  Mrs.  Davilow's  mind  so  as  to  over- 
come her  habit  of  uneasy  foreboding.  Gwendolen 
and  Grandcourt  cantering  in  front  of  her,  and  then 
slackening  their  pace  to  a  conversational  walk 
till  the  carriage  came  up  with  them  again,  made 
a  gratifying  sight;  but  it  served  chiefly  to  keep 
up  the  conflict  of  hopes  and  fears  about  her 
daughter's  lot  Here  was  an  irresistible  oppor- 
tunity for  a  lover  to  speak  and  put  an  end  to  all 
uncertainties,  and  Mrs.  Davilow  could  only  hope 
with  trembling  that  Gwendolen's  decision  would 
be  favorable.  Certainly  if  Rex's  love  had  been 
repugnant  to  her,  Mr.  Grandcourt  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  in  complete  contrast  with  Rex ; 
and  that  he  had  produced  some  quite  novel  im- 
pression on  her  seemed  evident  hi  her  marked 
abstinence  from  satirical  observations,  nay,  her 
total  silence  about  his  characteristics — a  silence 
which  Mrs.  Davilow  did  not  dare  to  break.  "  Is 
he  a  man  she  would  be  happy  with  ?"  was  a 
question  that  inevitably  arose  in  the  mother's 
mind.  "  Well,  perhaps  as  happy  as  she  would 
be  with  any  one  else,  or  as  most  other  women 
are,"  was  the  answer  with  which  she  tried  to 
quiet  herself;  for  she  could  not  imagine  Gwen- 
dolen under  the  influence  of  any  feeling  which 
would  make  her  satisfied  in  what  we  traditional- 
ly call  "  mean  circumstances." 

Grandcourt's  own  thought  was  looking  in  the 
same  direction:  he  wanted  to  have  done  with 
the  uncertainty  that  belonged  to  his  not  having 
spoken.  As  to  any  further  uncertainty — well,  it 
was  something  without  any  reasonable  basis, 
some  quality  in  the  air  which  acted  as  an  irri- 
tant to  his  wishes. 

Gwendolen  enjoyed  the  riding,  but  her  pleas- 
ure did  not  break  forth  in  girlish  unpremeditated 
chat  and  laughter,  as  it  did  on  that  morning  with 
Rex.  She  spoke  a  little,  and  even  laughed,  but 
with  a  lightness  as  of  a  far-off  echo :  for  her  too 
there  was  some  peculiar  quality  in  the  air — not, 
she  was  sure,  any  subjugation  of  her  will  by  Mr. 


Grandcourt,  and  the  splendid  prospects  he  meant 
to  offer  her;  for  Gwendolen  desired  every  one, 
that  dignified  gentleman  himself  included,  to  un- 
derstand that  she  was  going  to  do  just  as  she 
liked,  and  that  they  had  better  not  calculate  on 
her  pleasing  them.  If  she  chose  to  take -this 
husband,  she  would  have  him  know  that  she  was 
not  going  to  renounce  her  freedom,  or,  according 
to  her  favorite  formula, "  not  going  to  do  as  oth- 
er women  did." 

Grandcourt's  speeches  this  morning  were,  as 
usual,  all  of  that  brief  sort  which  never  fails  to 
make  a  conversational  figure  when  the  speaker 
is  held  important  in  his  circle.  Stopping  so 
soon,  they  give  signs  of  a  suppressed  and  formi- 
dable ability  to  say  more,  and  have  also  the  mer- 
itorious quality  of  allowing  lengthiness  to  others. 

"  How  do  you  like  Criterion's  paces  ?"  he  said, 
after  they  had  entered  the  park  and  were  slack- 
ening from  a  canter  to  a  walk. 

"He  is  delightful  to  ride.  I  should  like  to 
have  a  leap  with  him,  if  it  would  not  frighten 
mamma.  There  was  a  good  wide  channel  we 
passed  five  minutes  ago.  I  should  like  to  have  a 
gallop  back  and  take  it." 

"  Pray  do.     We  can  take  it  together." 

"  No,  thanks.  Mamma  is  so  timid — if  she  saw 
me  it  might  make  her  ill." 

"  Let  me  go  and  explain.  Criterion  would  take 
it  without  fail." 

"  No — indeed — you  are  very  kind — but  it  would 
alarm  her  too  much.  I  dare  take  any  leap  when 
she  is  not  by;  but  I  do  it  and  don't  tell  her 
about  it." 

"  We  can  let  the  carriage  pass,  and  then  set 
off." 

"  No,  no,  pray  don't  think  of  it  any  more ;  I 
spoke  quite  randomly,"  said  Gwendolen.  She 
began  to  feel  a  new  objection  to  carrying  out  her 
own  proposition. 

"  But  Mrs.  Davilow  knows  I  shall  take  care  of 
you." 

"  Yes,  but  she  would  think  of  you  as  having 
to  take  care  of  my  broken  neck." 

There  was  a  considerable  pause  before  Grand- 
court  said,  looking  toward  her,  "  I  should  like  to 
have  the  right  always  to  take  care  of  you." 

Gwendolen  did  not  turn  her  eyes  on  him:  it 
seemed  to  her  a  long  while  that  she  was  first 
blushing  and  then  turning  pale,  but,  to  Grand- 
court's  rate  of  judgment,  she  answered  soon 
enough,  with  the  lightest  flute-tone  and  a  care- 
less movement  of  the  head,  "  Oh,  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  want  to  be  taken  care  of :  if  I  chose  to 
risk  breaking  my  neck,  I  should  like  to  be  at  lib- 
erty to  do  it." 

She  checked  her  horse  as  she  spoke,  and  turned 
in  her  saddle,  looking  toward  the  advancing  car- 
riage. Her  eyes  swept  across  Grandcourt  as  she 
made  this  movement,  but  there  was  no  language 
in  them  to  correct  the  carelessness  of  her  reply. 
At  that  very  moment  she  was  aware  that  she 
was  risking  something — not  her  neck,  but  the 
possibility  of  finally  checking  Grandcourt's  ad- 
vances, and  she  did  not  feel  contented  with  the 
possibility. 

"  Damn  her !"  thought  Grandcourt,  as  he  too 
checked  his  horse.  He  was  not  a  wordy  thinker, 
and  this  explosive  phrase  stood  for  mixed  im- 
pressions which  eloquent  interpreters  might  have 
expanded  into  some  sentences  full  of  an  irritated 
sense  that  he  was  being  mystified,  and  a  dctermi- 


46 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


nation  that  this  girl  should  not  make  a  fool  of 
him.  Did  she  want  him  to  throw  himself  at  her 
feet  and  declare  that  he  was  dying  for  her  ?  It 
was  not  by  that  gate  that  she  would  enter  on  the 
privileges  he  could  give  her.  Or  did  she  expect 
him  to  write  his  proposals  ?  Equally  a  delusion. 
He  would  not  make  his  offer  in  any  way  that 
could  place  him  definitely  in  the  position  of  be- 
ing rejected.  But  as  to  her  accepting  him,  she 
had  done  it  already  in  accepting  his  marked  at- 
tentions, and  any  thing  which  happened  to  break 
them  off  would  be  understood  to  her  disadvan- 
tage. She  was  merely  coquetting,  then  ? 

However,  the  carriage  came  up,  and  no  further 
tete-d-tete  could  well  occur  before  their  arrival  at 
the  house,  where  there  was  abundant  company,  to 
whom  Gwendolen,  clad  in  riding  dress,  with  her 
hat  laid  aside,  clad  also  in  the  repute  of  being 
chosen  by  Mr.  Grandcourt,  was  naturally  a  centre 
of  observation ;  and  since  the  objectionable  Mr. 
Lush  was  not  there  to  look  at  her,  this  stimulus 
of  admiring  attention  heightened  Tier  spirits,  and 
dispersed,  for  the  tune,  the  uneasy  consciousness 
of  divided  impulses  which  threatened  her  with 
repentance  of  her  own  acts.  Whether  Grand- 
court  had  been  offended  or  not  there  was  no 
judging :  his  manners  were  unchanged,  but  Gwen- 
dolen's acuteness  had  not  gone  deeper  than  to 
discern  that  his  manners  were  no  clew  for  her, 
and  because  these  were  unchanged  she  was  not 
the  less  afraid  of  him. 

She  had  not  been  at  Diplow  before  except  to 
dine ;  and  since  certain  points  of  view  from  the 
windows  and  the  garden  were  worth  showing, 
Lady  Flora  Hollis  proposed  after  luncheon,  when 
some  of  the  guests  had  dispersed,  and  the  sun 
was  sloping  toward  four  o'clock,  that  the  remain- 
ing party  should  make  a  little  exploration.  Here 
came  frequent  opportunities  when  Grandcourt 
might  have  retained  Gwendolen  apart  and  have 
spoken  to  her  unheard.  But  no!  He  indeed 
spoke  to  no  one  else,  but  what  he  said  was  noth- 
ing more  eager  or  intimate  than  it  had  been  in 
their  first  interview.  He  looked  at  her  not  less 
than  usual ;  and  some  of  her  defiant  spirit  having 
come  back,  she  looked  full  at  him  in  return,  not 
caring — rather  preferring — that  his  eyes  had  no 
expression  in  them. 

But  at  last  it  seemed  as  if  he  entertained  some 
contrivance.  After  they  had  nearly  made  the 
tour  of  the  grounds,  the  whole  party  paused  by 
the  pool  to  be  amused  with  Fetch's  accomplish- 
ment of  bringing  a  water-lily  to  the  bank  like 
Cowper's  spaniel  Beau,  and  having  been  disap- 
pointed in  his  first  attempt,  insisted  on  his  trying 
again. 

Here  Grandcourt,  who  stood  with  Gwendolen 
outside  the  group,  turned  deliberately,  and  fixing 
his  eyes  on  a  knoll  planted  with  American  shrubs, 
and  having  a  winding  path  up  it,  said,  languidly, 

"  This  is  a  bore.     Shall  we  go  up  there  ?" 

"  Oh,  certainly — since  we  are  exploring,"  said 
Gwendolen.  She  was  rather  pleased,  and  yet 
afraid. 

The  path  was  too  narrow  for  him  to  offer  his 
arm,  and  they  walked  up  in  silence.  When  they 
were  on  the  bit  of  platform  at  the  summit,  Grand- 
court  said, 

"  There  is  nothing  to  be  seen  here :  the  thing 
was  not  worth  climbing." 

How  was  it  that  Gwendolen  did  not  laugh? 
She  was  perfectly  silent,  holding  up  the  folds  of 


her  robe  like  a  statue,  and  giving  a  harder  grasp 
to  the  handle  of  her  whip,  which  she  had  snatched 
up  automatically  with  her  hat  when  they  had  first 
set  off. 

"  What  sort  of  place  do  you  like  ?"  said  Grand- 
court. 

"  Different  places  are  agreeable  in  their  way. 
On  the  whole,  I  think,  I  prefer  places  that  are 
open  and  cheerful.  I  am  not  fond  of  any  thing 
sombre." 

"  Your  place  at  Offendene  is  too  sombre." 

"  It  is,  rather." 

"  You  will  not  remain  there  long,  I  hope." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  think  so.  Mamma  likes  to  be  near 
her  sister." 

Silence  for  a  short  space. 

"  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  you  will  always 
live  there,  though  Mrs.  Davilow  may." 

"  I  don't  know.  We  women  can't  go  in  search 
of  adventures — to  find  out  the  Northwest  Passage 
or  the  source  of  the  Nile,  or  to  hunt  tigers  in  the 
East.  We  must  stay  where  we  grow,  or  where 
the  gardeners  like  to  transplant  us.  We  are 
brought  up  like  the  flowers,  to  look  as  pretty  as 
we  can,  and  be  dull  without  complaining.  That 
is  my  notion  about  the  plants :  they  are  often 
bored,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  some  of  them 
have  got  poisonous.  What  do  you  think  ?"  Gwen- 
dolen had  run  on  rather  nervously,  lightly  whip- 
ping the  rhododendron  bush  in  front  of  her. 

"  I  quite  agree.  Most  things  are  bores,"  said 
Grandcourt,  his  mind  having  been  pushed  into 
an  easy  current,  away  from  its  intended  track. 
But  after  a  moment's  pause  he  continued,  in  his 
broken,  refined  drawl, 

"  But  a  woman  can  be  married." 

"  Some  women  can." 

"You  certainly,  unless  you  are  obstinately 
cruel." 

"  I  am  not  sure  that  I  am  not  both  cruel  and 
obstinate."  Here  Gwendolen  suddenly  turned  her 
head  and  looked  full  at  Grandcourt,  "whose  eyes 
she  had  felt  to  be  upon  her  throughout  their  con- 
versation. She  was  wondering  what  the  effect  of 
looking  at  him  would  be  on  herself  rather  than 
on  him. 

He  stood  perfectly  still,  half  a  yard  or  more 
away  from  her  ;  and  it  flashed  through  her 
thought  that  a  sort  of  lotos-eater's  stupor  had 
begun  in  him  and  was  taking  possession  of  her. 
Then  he  said, 

"  Are  you  as  uncertain  about  yourself  as  you 
make  others  about  you  ?" 

."  I  am  quite  uncertain  about  myself ;  I  don't 
know  how  uncertain  others  may  be." 

"  And  you  wish  them  to  understand  that  you 
don't  care?"  said  Grandcourt,  with  a  touch  of 
new  hardness  in  his  tone. 

"  I  did  not  say  that,"  Gwendolen  replied,  hesi- 
tatingly, and  turning  her  eyes  away,  whipped  the 
rhododendron  bush  again.  She  wished  she  were 
on  horseback,  that  she  might  set  off  on  a  canter. 
It  was  impossible  to  set  off  running  down  the 
knoll. 

"You  do  care,  then,"  said  Grandcourt,  not 
more  quickly,  but  with  a  softened  drawl. 

"  Ha !  my  whip !"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a  little 
scream  of  distress.  She  had  let  it  go — what 
could  be  more  natural  in  a  slight  agitation? — 
and — but  this  seemed  less  natural  in  a  gold- 
handled  whip  which  had  been  left  altogether  to 
itself — it  had  gone  with  some  force  over  the  im- 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


47 


mediate  shrubs,  and  had  lodged  itself  in  the 
branches  of  an  azalea  half-way  down  the  knoll. 
She  could  run  down  now,  laughing  prettily,  and 
Grandcourt  was  obliged  to  follow ;  but  she  was 
beforehand  with  him  in  rescuing  the  whip,  and 
continued  on  her  way  to  the  level  ground,  when 
she  paused  and  looked  at  Grandcourt  with  an  ex- 
asperating brightness  in  her  glance  and  a  height- 
ened color,  as  if  she  had  carried  a  triumph  ;  and 
these  indications  were  still  noticeable  to  Mrs. 
Davilow  when  Gwendolen  and  Grandcourt  joined 
the  rest  of  the  party. 

"It  is  all  coquetting,"  thought  Grandcourt; 
"  the  next  time  I  beckon,  she  will  come  down." 

It  Beemed  to  him  likely  that  this  final  beckon- 
ing might  happen  the  very  next  day,  when  there 
was  to  be  a  picnic  archery  meeting  in  Cardell 
Chase,  according  to  the  plan  projected  on  the 
evening  of  the  ball. 

Even  in  Gwendolen's  mind  that  result  was  one 
of  two  likelihoods  that  presented  themselves 
alternately,  one  of  two  decisions  toward  which 
she  was  being  precipitated,  as  if  they  were  two 
sides  of  a  boundary  line,  and  she  did  not  know  on 
which  she  should  fall.  This  subjection  to  a  pos- 
sible self,  a  self  not  to  be  absolutely  predicted 
about,  caused  hoc  some  astonishment  and  terror : 
her  favorite  key  of  life — doing  as  she  liked — 
seemed  to  fail  her,  and  she  could  not  foresee 
what  at  a  given  moment  she  might  like  to  do. 
The  prospect  of  marrying  Grandcourt  really 
seemed  more  attractive  to  her  than  she  had  be- 
lieved beforehand  that  any  marriage  could  be : 
the  dignities,  the  luxuries,  the  power  of  doing  a 
great  deal  of  what  she  liked  to  do,  which  had 
now  come  close  to  her,  and  within  her  choice  to 
secure  or  to  lose,  took  hold  of  her  nature  as  if  it 
had  Ijeen  the  strong  odor  of  what  she  had  only 
imagined  and  longed  for  before.  And  Grand- 
court  himself  ?  He  seemed  as  little  of  a  flaw  in 
his  fortunes  as  a  lover  and  husband  could  possi- 
bly be.  Gwendolen  wished  to  mount  the  chariot 
and  drive  the  plunging  horses  herself,  with  a 
spouse  by  her  side  who  would  fold  his  arms  and 
give  her  his  countenance  without  looking  ridicu- 
lous. Certainly,  with  all  her  perspicacity,  and 
all  the  reading  which  seemed  to  her  mamma  dan- 
gerously instructive,  her  judgment  was  conscious- 
ly a  little  at  fault  before  Grandcourt.  He  was 
adorably  quiet  and  free  from  absurdities — he 
could  be  a  husband  en  suite  with  the  best  appear- 
ance a  woman  could  make.  But  what  else  was 
he  ?  He  had  been  every  where,  and  seen  every 
thing.  That  was  desirable,  and  especially  grati- 
fying as  a  preamble  to  his  supreme  preference 
for  Gwendolen  Harleth.  He  did  not  appear  to 
enjoy  any  thing  much.  That  was  not  necessary : 
and  the  less  he  had  of  particular  tastes  or  desires, 
the  more  freedom  his  wife  was  likely  to  have  in 
following  hers.  Gwendolen  conceived  that  after 
marriage  she  would  most  probably  foe  able  to 
manage  him  thoroughly. 

How  was  it  that  he  caused  her  unusual  con- 
straint now  ? — that  she  was  less  daring  and  play- 
ful in  her  talk  with  him  than  with  any  other 
admirer  she  had  known  ?  That  absence  of  de- 
monstrativeness  which  she  was  glad  of,  acted  as  a 
charm  in  more  senses  than  one,  and  was  slightly 
benumbing.  Grandcourt,  after  all,  was  formi- 
dable— a  handsome  lizard  of  a  hitherto  unknown 
species,  not  of  the  lively,  darting  kind.  But 
Gwendolen  knew  hardly  any  thing  about  lizards, 


and  ignorance  gives  one  a  large  range  of  probabil- 
ities. This  splendid  specimen  was  probably  gen- 
tle, suitable  as  a  boudoir  pet :  what  may  not  a  liz- 
ard be,  if  you  know  nothing  to  the  contrary  ?  Her 
acquaintance  with  Grandcourt  was  such  that  no 
accomplishment  suddenly  revealed  in  him  would 
have  surprised  her.  And  he  was  so  little  sug- 
gestive of  drama  that  it  hardly  occurred  to  her 
to  think  with  any  detail  how  his  life  of  thirty-six 
years  had  been  passed :  in  general  she  imagined 
him  always  cold  and  dignified,  not  likely  ever  to 
have  committed  himself.  He  had  hunted  the 
tiger — had  he  ever  been  in  love  or  made  love  ? 
The  one  experience  and  the  other  seemed  alike 
remote  in  Gwendolen's  fancy  from  the  Mr.  Grand- 
court  who  had  come  to  Diplow  in  order  appar- 
ently to  make  a  chief  epoch  in  her  destiny — per- 
haps by  introducing  her  to  that  state  of  marriage 
which  she  had  resolved  to  make  a  state  of  great- 
er freedom  than  her  girlhood.  And  on  the  whole 
she  wished  to  marry  him ;  he  suited  her  purpose ; 
tier  prevailing,  deliberate  intention  was  to  accept 
"  ~na. 

But  was  she  going  to  fulfill  her  deliberate  in- 
tention ?  She  began  to  be  afraid  of  herself,  and 
to  find  out  a  certain  difficulty  in  doing  as  she 
liked.  Already  her  assertion  of  independence  in 
evading  his  advances  had  been  carried  farther 
than  was  necessary,  and  she  was  thinking  with 
some  anxiety  what  she  might  do  on  the  next  oc- 
casion. 

Seated,  according  to  her  habit,  with  her  back 
to  the  horses  on  their  drive  homeward,  she  was 
completely  under  the  observation  of  her  mamma, 
who  took  the  excitement  and  changefulness  in 
the  expression  of  her  eyes,  her  unwonted  absence 
of  mind  and  total  silence,  as  unmistakable  signs 
that  something  unprecedented  had  occurred  be- 
tween her  and  Grandcourt.  Mrs.  Davilow's  un- 
easiness determined  her  to  risk  some  speech  on 
the  subject :  the  Gascoignes  were  to  dine  at  Of- 
fendene,  and  in  what  had  occurred  this  morning 
there  might  be  some  reason  for  consulting  the 
Rector ;  not  that  she  expected  him  any  more  than 
herself  to  influence  Gwendolen,  but  that  her  anx- 
ious mind  wanted  to  be  disburdened. 

•  Something  has  happened,  dear  *"  she  began, 
in  a  tender  tone  of  question. 

Gwendolen  looked  round,  and  seeming  to  be 
roused  to  the  consciousness  of  her  physical  self, 
took  off  her  gloves  and  then  her  hat,  that  the  soft 
breeze  might  blow  on  her  head.  They  were  in  a 
retired  bit  of  the  road,  where  the  long  afternoon 
shadows  from  the  bordering  trees  fell  across  it, 
and  no  observers  were  within  sight.  Her  eyes 
continued  to  meet  her  mother's,  but  she  did  not 
speak. 

'Mr.  Grandcourt  has  been  saying  something? 
—Tell  me,  dear."  The  last  words  were  uttered 
beseechingly. 

"  What  am  I  to  tell  you,  mamma  ?"  was  the 
perverse  answer. 

"  I  am  sure  something  has  agitated  you.  You 
ought  to  confide  in  me,  Gwen.  You  ought  not  to 
leave  me  in  doubt  and  anxiety."  Mrs.  Davilow's 
eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"  Mamma  dear,  please  don't  be  miserable,"  said 
Gwendolen,  with  pettish  remonstrance.  "  It  only 
makes  me  more  so.  I  am  in  doubt  myself." 

"About  Mr.  Grandcourt's  intentions?"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  gathering  determination  from  her 
alarms. 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


"No;  not  at  all,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  some 
curtness,  and  a  pretty  little  toss  of  the  head  as 
she  put  on  her  hat  again. 

"About  whether  you  will  accept  him,  then?" 

"Precisely." 

"  Have  you  given  him  a  doubtful  answer  ?" 

"  I  have  given  him  no  answer  at  all." 

"  He  has  spoken  so  that  you  could  not  misun- 
derstand him  ?" 

"  As  far  as  I  would  let  him  speak." 

"  You  expect  him  to  persevere  ?"  Mrs.  Davilow 
put  this  question  rather  anxiously,  and  receiving 
no  answer,  asked  another.  "  You  don't  consider 
that  you  have  discouraged  him  ?" 

"  I  dare  say  not." 

"I  thought  you  liked  him,  dear,"  said  Mrs. 
Davilow,  timidly. 

"  So  I  do,  mamma,  as  liking  goes.  There  is  less 
to  dislike  about  him  than  about  most  men.  He 
is  quiet  and  distingue."  Gwendolen  so  far  spoke 
with  a  pouting  sort  of  gravity ;  but  suddenly  she 
recovered  some  of  her  mischievousness,  and  her 
face  broke  into  a  smile  as  she  added,  "  Indeed,  he 
has  all  the  qualities  that  would  make  a  husband 
tolerable — battlement,  veranda,  stables,  etc. ;  no 
grins  and  no  glass  in  his  eye." 

"  Do  be  serious  with  me  for  a  moment,  dear. 
Am  I  to  understand  that  you  mean  to  accept 
him?" 

"Oh,  pray,  mamma,  leave  me  to  myself,"  said 
Gwendolen,  with  a  pettish  distress  in  her  voice. 

And  Mrs.  Davilow  said  no  more. 

When  they  got  home,  Gwendolen  declared  that 
she  would  not  dine.  She  was  tired,  and  would 
come  down  in  the  evening  after  she  had  taken 
some  rest.  The  probability  that  her  uncle  would 
hear  what  had  passed  did  not  trouble  her.  She 
was  convinced  that  whatever  he  might  say  would 
be  on  the  side  of  her  accepting  Grandcourt,  and 
she  wished  to  accept  him  if  she  could.  At  this 
moment  she  would  willingly  have  had  weights 
hung  on  her  own  caprice. 

Mr.  Gascoigne  did  hear — not  Gwendolen's  an- 
swers repeated  verbatim,  but  a  softened  general- 
ized account  of  them.  The  mother  conveyed  as 
vaguely  as  the  keen  Rector's  questions  would  let 
her  the  impression  that  Gwendolen  was  in  some 
uncertainty  about  her  own  mind,  but  inclined  on 
the  whole  to  acceptance.  The  result  was  that  the 
uncle  felt  himself  called  on  to  interfere :  he  did 
not  conceive  that  he  should  do  his  duty  in  with- 
holding direction  from  his  niece  in  a  momentous 
crisis  of  this  kind.  Mrs.  Davilow  ventured  a  hesi- 
tating opinion  that  perhaps  it  would  be  safer  to 
say  nothing— Gwendolen  was  so  sensitive  (she 
did  not  like  to  say  willful).  But  the  Rector's  was 
a  firm  mind,  grasping  its  first  judgments  tena- 
ciously and  acting  on  them  promptly,  whence 
counter-judgments  were  no  more  for  him  than 
shadows  fleeting  across  the  solid  ground  to  which 
he  adjusted  himself. 

This  match  with  Grandcourt  presented  itself  to 
him  as  a  sort  of  public  affair ;  perhaps  there  were 
ways  in  which  it  might  even  strengthen  the  Es- 
tablishment. To  the  Rector,  whose  father  (no- 
body would  have  suspected  it,  and  nobody  was 
told)  had  risen  to  be  a  provincial  corn  dealer, 
aristocratic  heirship  resembled  regal  heirship  in 
excepting  its  possessor  from  the  ordinary  stand- 
ard of  moral  judgments.  Grandcourt,  the  almost 
certain  baronet,  the  probable  peer,  was  to  be 
ranged  with  public  personages,  and  was  a  match 


to  be  accepted  on  broad  general  grounds,  national 
and  ecclesiastical.  Such  public  personages,  it  is 
true,  are  often  in  the  nature  of  giants  which  an 
ancient  community  may  have  felt  pride  and  safe- 
ty in  possessing,  though,  regarded  privately,  these 
born  eminences  must  often  have  been  inconven- 
ient and  even  noisome.  But  of  the  future  hus- 
band personally  Mr.  Gascoigne  was  disposed  to 
think  the  best.  Gossip  is  a  sort  of  smoke  that 
comes  from  the  dirty  tobacco-pipes  of  those  who 
diffuse  it :  it  proves  nothing  but  the  bad  taste  of 
the  smoker.  But  if  Grandcourt  had  really  made 
any  deeper  or  more  unfortunate  experiments  in 
folly  than  were  common  in  young  men  of  high 
prospects,  he  was  of  an  age  to  have  finished  them. 
All  accounts  can  be  suitably  wound  up  when  a 
man  has  not  ruined  himself,  and  the  expense  may 
be  taken  as  an  insurance  against  future  error. 
This  was  the  view  of  practical  wisdom ;  with  ref- 
erence to  higher  views,  repentance  had  a  supreme 
moral  and  religious  value.  There  was  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  a  woman  of  well-regulated 
mind  would  be  happy  with  Grandcourt. 

It  was  no  surprise  to  Gwendolen  on  coming 
down  to  tea  to  be  told  that  her  uncle  wished  to 
see  her  in  the  dining-room.  He  threw  aside  the 
paper  as  she  entered  and  greeted  her  with  his 
usual  kindness.  As  his  wife  had  remarked,  he 
always  "  made  much"  of  Gwendolen,  and  her  im- 
portance had  risen  of  late.  "  My  dear,"  he  said, 
in  a  fatherly  way,  moving  a  chair  for  her  as  he 
held  her  hand,  "  I  want  to  speak  to  you  on  a  sub- 
ject which  is  more  momentous  than  any  other 
with  regard  to  your  welfare.  You  will  guess  what 
I  mean.  But  I  shall  speak  to  you  with  perfect 
directness:  in  such  matters  I  consider  myself 
bound  to  act  as  your  father.  You  have  no  ob- 
jection, I  hope  ?" 

"Oh  dear  no,  uncle.  You  have  always'  been 
very  kind  to  me,"  said  Gwendolen,  frankly.  This 
evening  she  was  willing,  if  it  were  possible,  to  be 
a  little  fortified  against  her  troublesome  self,  and 
her  resistant  temper  was  in  abeyance.  The  Rec- 
tor's mode  of  speech  always  conveyed  a  thrill  of 
authority,  as  of  a  word  of  command :  it  seemed  to 
take  for  granted  that  there  could  be  no  wavering 
in  the  audience,  and  that  every  one  was  going  to 
be  rationally  obedient. 

"  It  is  naturally  a  satisfaction  to  me  that  the 
prospect  of  a  marriage  for  you — advantageous  in 
the  highest  degree — has  presented  itself  so  early. 
I  do  not  know  exactly  what  has  passed  between 
you  and  Mr.  Grandcourt,  but  I  presume  there  can 
be  little  doubt,  from  the  way  in  which  he  has  dis- 
tinguished you,  that  he  desires  to  make  you  his 
wife." 

Gwendolen  did  not  speak  immediately,  and  her 
uncle  said,  with  more  emphasis, 

"  Have  you  any  doubt  of  that  yourself,  my  dear  ?" 

"  I  suppose  that  is  what  he  has.  been  thinking 
of.  But  he  may  have  changed  his  mind  to-mor- 
row," said  Gwendolen. 

"Why  to-morrow?  Has  he  made  advances 
which  you  have  discouraged  ?" 

"I  think  he  meant — he  began  to  make  ad- 
vances— but  I  did  not  encourage  them.  I  turned 
the  conversation." 

"  Will  you  confide  hi  me  so  far  as  to  tell  me 
your  reasons  ?" 

"  I  am  not  sure  that  I  had  any  reasons,  uncle." 
Gwendolen  laughed  rather  artificially. 

"  You  are  quite  capable  of  reflecting,  Gwendo- 


BOOK  H.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


49 


len.  You  are  aware  that  this  is  not  a  trivial  oc- 
casion, and  it  concerns  your  establishment  for  life 
under  circumstances  which  may  not  occur  again. 
You  have  a  duty  here  both  to  yourself  and  your 
family.  I  wish  to  understand  whether  you  have 
any  ground  for  hesitating  as  to  your  acceptance 
of  Mr.  Grandcourt." 

"  I  suppose  I  hesitate  without  grounds."  Gwen- 
dolen spoke  rather  poutingly,  and  her  uncle  grew 
suspicious. 

"  Is  he  disagreeable  to  you  personally  ?" 

"No." 

"  Have  you  heard  any  thing  of  him  which  has 
affected  you  disagreeably  ?"  The  Rector  thought 
it  impossible  that  Gwendolen  could  have  heard 
the  gossip  he  had  heard,  but  in  any  case  he  must 
endeavor  to  put  all  things  in  the  right  light  for 
her. 

"  I  have  heard  nothing  about  him  except  that 
he  is  a  great  match,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  some 
sauciness ;  "  and  that  affects  me  very  agreeably." 

"  Then,  my  dear  Gwendolen,  I  have  nothing 
further  to  say  than  this :  you  hold  your  fortune 
in  your  own  hands — a  fortune  such  as  rarely  hap- 
pens to  a  girl  in  your  circumstances — a  fortune, 
in  fact,  which  almost  takes  the  question  out  of 
the  range  of  mere  personal  feeling,  and  makes 
your  acceptance  of  it  a  duty.  If  Providence  of- 
fers you  power  and  position — especially  when 
unclogged  by  any  conditions  that  are  repugnant 
to  you — your  course  is  one  of  responsibility,  into 
which  caprice  must  not  enter.  A  man  does  not 
like  to  have  his  attachment  trifled  with :  he  may 
not  be  at  once  repelled — these  things  are  matters 
of  individual  disposition.  But  the  trifling  may 
be  carried  too  far.  And  I  must  point  out  to  you 
that  hi  case  Mr.  Grandcourt  were  repelled  with- 
out your  having  refused  him — without  your  hav- 
ing intended  ultimately  to  refuse  him — your  sit- 
uation would  be  a  humiliating  and  painful  one. 
I,  for  my  part,  should  regard  you  with  severe  dis- 
approbation, as  the  victim  of  nothing  else  than 
your  own  coquetry  and  folly." 

Gwendolen  became  pallid  as  she  listened  to 
this  admonitory  speech.  The  ideas  it  raised  had 
the  force  of  sensations.  Her  resistant  courage 
would  not  help  her  here,  because  her  uncle  was 
not  urging  her  against  her  own  resolve ;  he  was 
pressing  upon  her  the  motives  of  dread  which 
she  already  felt ;  he  was  making  her  more  con- 
scious of  the  risks  that  lay  within  herself.  She 
was  silent,  and  the  Rector  observed  that  he  had 
produced  some  strong  effect. 

"  I  mean  this  in  kindness,  my  dear."  His  tone 
had  softened. 

"  I  am  aware  of  that,  uncle,"  said  Gwendolen, 
rising  and  shaking  her  head  back,  as  if  to  rouse 
herself  out  of  painful  passivity.  "  I  am  not 
foolish.  I  know  that  I  must  be  married  some 
time — before  it  is  too  late.  And  I  don't  see  how 
I  could  do  better  than  marry  Mr.  Grandcourt.  I 
mean  to  accept  him,  if  possible."  She  felt  as  if 
she  were  re-enforcing  herself  by  speaking  with 
this  decisiveness  to  her  uncle. 

But  the  Rector  was  a  little  startled  by  so  bare 
a  version  of  his  own  meaning  from  those  young 
lips.  He  wished  that  in  her  mind  his  advice 
should  be  taken  in  an  infusion  of  sentiments  prop- 
er to  a  girl,  and  such  as  are  presupposed  in  the 
advice  of  a  clergyman,  although  he  may  not  con- 
sider them  always  appropriate  to  be  put  forward. 
He  wished  his  niece  parks,  carriages,  a  title — 
D 


every  thing  that  would  make  this  world  a  pleas- 
ant abode ;  but  he  wished  her  not  to  be  cynical — 
to  be,  on  the  contrary,  religiously  dutiful,  and  have 
warm  domestic  affections. 

"  My  dear  Gwendolen,"  he  said,  rising  also,  and 
speaking  with  benignant  gravity,  "I  trust  that 
you  will  find  in  marriage  a  new  fountain  of  duty 
and  affection.  Marriage  is  the  only  true  and  sat- 
isfactory sphere  of  a  woman,  and  if  your  marriage 
with  Mr.  Grandcourt  should  be  happily  decided 
upon,  you  will  have  probably  an  increasing  power, 
both  of  rank  and  wealth,  which  may  be  used  for 
the  benefit  of  others.  These  considerations  are 
something  higher  than  romance.  You  are  fitted 
by  natural  gifts  for  a  position  which,  considering 
your  birth  and  early  prospects,  could  hardly  be 
looked  forward  to  as  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
things ;  and  I  trust  that  you  will  grace  it  not  only 
by  those  personal  gifts,  but  by  a  good  and  con- 
sistent life." 

"  I  hope  mamma  will  be  the  happier,"  said 
Gwendolen,  in  a  more  cheerful  way,  lifting  her 
hands  backward  to  her  neck  and  moving  toward 
the  door.  She  wanted  to  waive  those  higher  con- 
siderations. 

Mr.  Gascoigne  felt  that  he  had  come  to  a  satis- 
factory understanding  with  his  niece,  and  had 
furthered  her  happy  settlement  in  life  by  further- 
ing her  engagement  to  Grandcourt.  Meanwhile 
there  was  another  person  to  whom  the  contempla- 
tion of  that  issue  had  been  a  motive  for  some  ac- 
tivity, and  who  believed  that  he  too  on  this  par- 
ticular day  had  done  something  toward  bringing 
about  a  favorable  decision  in  his  sense — which 
happened  to  be  the  reverse  of  the  Rector's. 

Mr.  Lush's  absence  from  Diplow  during  Gwen- 
dolen's visit  had  been  due  not  to  any  fear  on  his 
part  of  meeting  that  supercilious  young  lady,  or 
of  being  abashed  by  her  frank  dislike,  but  to  an 
engagement  from  which  he  expected  important 
consequences.  He  was  gone,  ha  fact,  to  the  Wan- 
cester  Station  to  meet  a  lady  accompanied  by  a 
maid  and  two  children,  whom  he  put  into  a  fly, 
and  afterward  followed  to  the  hotel  of  the  Golden 
Keys  hi  that  town.  An  impressive  woman,  whom 
many  would  turn  to  look  at  again  in  passing ;  her 
figure  was  slim  and  sufficiently  tall,  her  face  rath- 
er emaciated,  so  that  its  sculpturesque  beauty  was 
the  more  pronounced,  her  crisp  hair  perfectly 
black,  and  her  large  anxious  eyes  also  what  we 
call  black.  Her  dress  was  soberly  correct,  her 
age  perhaps  physically  more  advanced  than  the 
number  of  years  would  imply,  but  hardly  less 
than  seven-and-thirty.  An  uneasy-looking  wom- 
an :  her  glance  seemed  to  presuppose  that  people 
and  things  were  going  to  be  unfavorable  to  her, 
while  she  was  nevertheless  ready  to  meet  them 
with  resolution.  The  children  were  lovely — a 
dark-haired  girl  of  six  or  more,  a  fairer  boy  of 
five.  When  Lush  incautiously  expressed  some 
surprise  at  her  having  brought  the  children,  she 
said,  with  a  sharp-edged  intonation, 

"Did  you  suppose  I  should  come  wandering 
about  here  by  myself  ?  Why  should  I  not  bring 
all  four  if  I  liked  ?" 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  said  Lush,  with  his  usual  flu- 
ent nonchalance. 

He  staid  an  hour  or  so  in  conference  with  her, 
and  rode  back  to  Diplow  in  a  state  of  mind  that 
was  at  once  hopeful  and  busily  anxious  as  to  the 
execution  of  the  little  plan  on  which  his  hopeful- 
ness was  based,  Grandcourt's  marriage  to  Gwen- 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


dolen  Harleth  would  not,  he  believed,  be  much  of 
a  good  to  either  of  them,  and  it  would  plainly  be 
fraught  with  disagreeables  to  himself.  But  now 
he  felt  confident  enough  to  say,  inwardly,  "  I  will 
take  odds  that  the  marriage  will  never  happen." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

I  will  not  clothe  myself  in  wreck— wear  gems 
Sawed  from  cramped  finger-bones  of  women  drowned ; 
Feel  chilly  vaporous  hands  of  ireful  ghosts 
Clutching  my  necklace ;  trick  my  maiden  breast 
With  orphans'  heritage.    Let  your  dead  love 
Marry  its  dead. 

GWENDOLEN  looked  lovely  and  vigorous  as  a 
tall,  newly  opened  lily  the  next  morning :  there 
was  a  reaction  of  young  energy  in  her,  and  yes- 
terday's self-distrust  soemed  no  more  than  the 
transient  shiver  on  the  surface  of  a  full  stream. 
The  roving  archery  match  in  Cardell  Chase  was 
a  delightful  prospect  for  the  sport's  sake  :  she  felt 
herself  beforehand  moving  about  like  a  wood- 
nymph  under  the  beeches  (in  appreciative  com- 
pany), and  the  imagined  scene  lent  a  charm  to 
further  advances  on  the  part  of  Grandcourt — not 
an  impassioned  lyrical  Daphnis  for  the  wood- 
nymph,  certainly  :  but  so  much  the  better.  To- 
day Gwendolen  foresaw  him  making  slow  conver- 
sational approaches  to  a  declaration,  and  foresaw 
herself  awaiting  and  encouraging  it  according  to 
the  rational  conclusion  which  she  had  expressed 
to  her  uncle. 

When  she  came  down  to  breakfast  (after  every 
one  had  left  the  table  except  Mrs.  Davilow)  there 
were  letters  on  her  plate.  One  of  them  she  read 
with  a  gathering  smile,  and  then  handed  it  to  her 
mamma,  who,  on  returning  it,  smiled  also,  finding 
new  cheerfulness  in  the  good  spirits  her  daughter 
had  shown  ever  since  waking,  and  said, 

"  You  don't  feel  inclined  to  go  a  thousand  miles 
away  ?" 

"  Not  exactly  so  far." 

"  It  was  a  sad  omission  not  to  have  written 
again  before  this.  Can't  you  write  now — before 
we  set  out  this  morning  ?" 

"It  is  not  so  pressing.  To-morrow  will  do. 
You  see,  they  leave  town  to-day.  I  must  write  to  j 
Dover.  They  will  be  there  till  Monday." 

"  Shall  I  write  for  you,  dear — if  it  teases  you  ?"  ( 

Gwendolen  did  not  speak  immediately,  but  after  | 
sipping  her  coffee  answered,  brusquely,  "  Oh  no,  : 
let  it  be  ;  I  will  write  to-morrow."  Then  feeling  | 
a  touch  of  compunction,  she  looked  up  and  said,  j 
with  playful  tenderness,  "Dear  old  beautiful 
mamma !" 

"Old,  child,  truly." 

"  Please  don't,  mamma !  I  meant  old  for  dar- 
ling. You  are  hardly  twenty-five  years  older 
than  I  am.  When  you  talk  in  that  way,  my  life 
shrivels  up  before  me." 

"One  can  have  a  great  deal  of  happiness  in 
twenty-five  years,  my  dear." 

"  I  must  lose  no  time  in  beginning,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, merrily.  "  The  sooner  I  get  my  palaces 
and  coaches,  the  better." 

"  And  a  good  husband  who  adores  you,  Gwen," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow,  encouragingly. 

Gwendolen  put  out  her  lips  saucily  and  said  j 
nothing. 

It  was  a  slight  drawback  on  her  pleasure  in 
starting  that  the  Rector  was  detained  by  magis- 


trate's business,  and  would  probably  not  be  able 
to  get  to  Cardell  Chase  at  all  that  day.  She 
cared  little  that  Mrs.  Gascoigne  and  Anna  chose 
not  to  go  without  him,  but  her  uncle's  presence 
would  have  seemed  to  make  it  a  matter  of  course 
that  the  decision  taken  would  be  acted  on.  For 
decision  in  itself  began  to  be  formidable.  Hav- 
ing come  close  to  accepting  Grandcourt,  Gwen- 
dolen felt  this  lot  of  unhoped-for  fullness  round- 
ing itself  too  definitely :  when  we  take  to  wishing 
a  great  deal  for  ourselves,  whatever  we  get  soon 
turns  into  mere  limitation  and  exclusion.  Still, 
there  was  the  re-assuring  thought  that  marriage 
would  be  the  gate  into  a  larger  freedom. 

The  place  of  meeting  was  a  grassy  spot  called 
Green  Arbor,  where  a  bit  of  hanging  wood  made 
a  sheltering  amphitheatre.  It  was  here  that  the 
coachful  of  servants  with  provisions  had  to  pre- 
pare the  picnic  meal ;  and  a  warden  of  the  Chase 
was  to  guide  the  roving  archers  so  as  to  keep  them 
within  the  due  distance  from  this  centre,  and  hin- 
der them  from  wandering  beyond  the  limit  which 
had  been  fixed  on — a  curve  that  might  be  drawn 
through  certain  well-known  points,  such  as  the 
Double  Oak,  the  Whispering  Stones,  and  the  High 
Cross.  The  plan  was  to  take  only  a  preliminary 
stroll  before  luncheon,  keeping  the  main  roving 
expedition  for  the  more  exquisite  lights  of  the  aft- 
ernoon. The  muster  was  rapid  enough  to  save 
every  one  from  dull  moments  of  waiting,  and  when 
the  groups  began  to  scatter  themselves  through 
the  light  and  shadow  made  here  by  closely  neigh- 
boring beeches  and  there  by  rarer  oaks,  one  may 
suppose  that  a  painter  would  have  been  glad  to 
look  on.  This  roving  archery  was  far  prettier 
than  the  stationary  game,  but  success  in  shooting 
at  variable  marks  was  less  favored  by  practice, 
and  the  hits  were  distributed  among  the  volun- 
teer archers  otherwise  than  they  would  have  been 
in  target-shooting.  From  this  cause,  perhaps,  as 
well  as  from  the  twofold  distraction  of  being  pre- 
occupied and  wishing  not  to  betray  her  preoc- 
cupation, Gwendolen  did  not  greatly  distinguish 
herself  hi  these  first  experiments,  unless  it  were 
by  the  lively  grace  with  which  she  took  her  com- 
parative failure.  She  was  in  her  white  and  green, 
as  on  the  day  of  the  former  Archery  Meeting, 
when  it  made  an  epoch  for  her  that  she  was  in- 
troduced to  Grandcourt ;  he  was  continually  by 
her  side  now,  yet  it  would  have  been  hard  to  tell 
from  mere  looks  and  manners  that  their  relation 
to  each  other  had  at  all  changed  since  their  first 
conversation.  Still,  there  were  other  grounds  that 
made  most  persons  conclude  thorn  to  be,  if  not 
engaged  already,  on  the  eve  of  being  so.  And 
she  believed  this  herself.  As  they  were  all  re- 
turning toward  Green  Arbor  in  divergent  groups, 
not  thinking  at  all  of  taking  aim,  but  merely 
chatting,  words  passed  which  seemed  really  the 
beginning  of  that  end — the  beginning  of  her  ac- 
ceptance. Grandcourt  said,  "  Do  you  know  how 
long  it  is  since  I  first  saw  you  in  this  dress  ?" 

"  The  Archery  Meeting  was  on  the  25th,  and 
this  is  the  13th,"  said  Gwendolen,  laughingly. 
"I  am  not  good  at  calculating,  but  I  will  venture 
to  say  that  it  must  be  nearly  three  weeks." 

A  little  pause,  and  then  he  said,  "  That  is  a 
great  loss  of  time." 

"  That  your  knowing  me  has  caused  you  ? 
Pray  don't  be  uncomplimentary :  I  don't  like  it." 

Pause  again.  "  It  is  because  of  the  gain  that  I 
feel  the  loss." 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


51 


Here  Gwendolen  herself  left  a  pause.     She  I 
was  thinking,  "  He  is  really  very  ingenious.     He  ] 
never  speaks  stupidly."     Her  silence  was  so  un- 
usual that  it  seemed  the  strongest  of  favorable 
answers,  and  he  continued  : 

"  The  gain  of  knowing  you  makes  me  feel  the 
time  I  lose  in  uncertainty.  Do  you  like  uncer- 
tainty ?" 

"  I  think  I  do,  rather,"  said  Gwendolen,  sud- 
denly beaming  on  him  with  a  playful  smile. 
"  There  is  more  in  it." 

Grandcourt  met  her  laughing  eyes  with  a  slow, 
steady  look  right  into  them,  which  seemed  like 
vision  in  the  abstract,  and  said,  "  Do  you  mean 
more  torment  for  me  ?" 

There  was  something  so  strange  to  Gwendolen 
in  this  moment  that  she  was  quite  shaken  out  of 
her  usual  self -consciousness.  Blushing  and  turn- 
ing away  her  eyes,  she  said,  "  No ;  that  would 
make  me  sorry." 

Grandcourt  would  have  followed  up  this  an- 
swer, which  the  change  in  her  manner  made  ap- 
parently decisive  of  her  favorable  intention ;  but 
he  was  not  in  any  way  overcome  so  as  to  be  un- 
aware that  they  were  now,  within  sight  of  every 
body,  descending  the  slope  into  Green  Arbor, 
and  descending  it  at  an  ill-chosen  point  where  it 
began  to  be  inconveniently  steep.  This  was  a 
reason  for  offering  his  hand  in  the  literal  sense 
to  help  her ;  she  took  it,  and  they  came  down  in 
silence,  much  observed  by  those  already  on  the 
level  —  among  others  by  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  who 
happened  to  be  standing  with  Mrs.  Davilow.  That 
lady  had  now  made  up  her  mind  that  Grand- 
court's  merits  were  not  such  as  would  have  in- 
duced Catherine  to  accept  him,  Catherine  having 
so  high  a  standard  as  to  have  refused  Lord  Slo- 
gan. Hence  she  looked  at  the  tenant  of  Diplow 
with  dispassionate  eyes. 

"  Mr.  Grandcourt  is  not  equal  as  a  man  to  his 
uncle,  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger — too  languid.  To  be 
sure,  Mr.  Grandcourt  is  a  much  younger  man, 
but  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  Sir  Hugo  were  to  out- 
live him,  notwithstanding  the  difference  of  years. 
It  is  ill  calculating  on  successions,"  concluded 
Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  rather  too  loudly. 

"It  is  indeed,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  able  to  as- 
sent with  quiet  cheerfulness,  for  she  was  so  well 
satisfied  with  the  actual  situation  of  affairs  that 
her  habitual  melancholy  in  their  general  unsatis- 
factoriness  was  altogether  in  abeyance. 

I  am  not  concerned  to  tell  of  the  food  that  was 
eaten  in  that  green  refectory,  or  even  to  dwell  on 
the  glories  of  the  forest  scenery  that  spread  them- 
selves out  beyond  the  level  front  of  the  hollow, 
being  just  now  bound  to  tell  a  story  of  life  at  a 
stage  when  the  blissful  beauty  of  earth  and  sky 
entered  only  by  narrow  and  oblique  inlets  into  the 
consciousness,  which  was  busy  with  a  small  social 
drama  almost  as  little  penetrated  by  a  feeling  of 
wider  relations  as  if  it  had  been  a  puppet-show. 
It  will  be  understood  that  the  food  and  Champagne 
were  of  the  best — the  talk  and  laughter  too,  in 
the  sense  of  belonging  to  the  best  society,  where 
no  one  makes  an  invidious  display  of  any  thing 
in  particular,  and  the  advantages  of  the  world  are  \ 
taken  with  that  high-bred  depreciation  which  fol- 
lows from  being  accustomed  to  them.  Some  of 
the  gentlemen  strolled  a  little  and  indulged  in  a 
cigar,  there  being  a  sufficient  interval  before  four 
o'clock — the  time  for  beginning  to  rove  again. 
Among  these,  strange  to  say,  was  Grandcourt ;  but 


not  Mr.  Lush,  who  seemed  to  be  taking  his  pleas- 
ure quite  generously  to-day  by  making  himself 
particularly  serviceable,  ordering  every  thing  for 
every  body,  and  by  this  activity  becoming  more 
than  ever  a  blot  on  the  scene  to  Gwendolen, 
though  he  kept  himself  amiably  aloof  from  her, 
and  never  even  looked  at  her  obviously.  When 
there  was  a  general  move  to  prepare  for  starting, 
it  appeared  that  the  bows  had  all  been  put  under 
the  charge  of  Lord  Brackenshaw's  valet,  and  Mr. 
Lush  was  concerned  to  save  ladies  the  trouble  of 
fetching  theirs  from  the  carriage  where  they  were 
propped.  He  did  not  intend  to  bring  Gwendo- 
len's, but  she,  fearful  lest  he  should  do  so,  hurried 
to  fetch  it  herself.  The  valet,  seeing  her  approach, 
met  her  with  it,  and  in  giving  it  into  her  hand, 
gave  also  a  letter  addressed  to  her.  She  asked  no 
question  about  it,  perceived  at  a  glance  that  the 
address  was  in  a  lady's  handwriting  (of  the  deli- 
cate kind  which  used  to  be  esteemed  feminine 
before  the  present  uncial  period),  and  moving 
away,  with  her  bow  in  her  hand,  saw  Mr.  Lush 
coming  to  fetch  other  bows.  To  avoid  meeting 
him  she  turned  aside  and  walked  with  her  back 
toward  the  stand  of  carriages,  opening  the  letter. 
It  contained  these  words : 

"  If  Miss  Harleth  is  in  doubt  wJiether  she  should 
accept  Mr.  Grandcourt,  let  her  break  from  Iier  party 
after  they  have  passed  the  WJiispering  Stones  and 
return  to  that  spot.  SJie  will  then  hear  something 
to  decide  her,  but  she  can  only  hear  it  by  keeping 
this  letter  a  strict  secret  from  every  one.  If  she 
does  not  act  according  to  this  letter,  she  will  repent, 
as  the  woman  who  writes  it  has  repented.  The  se- 
crecy Miss  Harleth  will  feel  tiersclf  bound  in  honor 
to  guard." 

Gwendolen  felt  an  inward  shock,  but  her  im- 
mediate thought  was,  "  It  is  come  in  time."  It 
lay  in  her  youthfulness  that  she  was  absorbed  by 
the  idea  of  the  revelation  to  be  made,  and  had  not 
even  a  momentary  suspicion  of  contrivance  that 
could  justify  her  in  showing  the  letter.  Her  mind 
gathered  itself  up  at  once  into  the  resolution  that 
she  would  manage  to  go  unobserved  to  the  Whis- 
pering Stones ;  and  thrusting  the  letter  into  her 
pocket,  she  turned  back  to  rejoin  the  company, 
with  that  sense  of  having  something  to  conceal 
which  to  her  nature  had  a  bracing  quality  and 
helped  her  to  be  mistress  of  herself. 

It  was  a  surprise  to  every  one  that  Grandcourt 
was  not,  like  the  other  smokers,  on  the  spot  in 
time  to  set  out  roving  with  the  rest.  "  We  shall 
alight  on  him  by-and-by,"  said  Lord  Brackenshaw ; 
"  he  can't  be  gone  far."  At  any  rate,  no  man 
could  be  waited  for.  This  apparent  forgetf ulness 
might  be  taken  for  the  distraction  of  a  lover  so 
absorbed  in  thinking  of  the  beloved  object  as  to 
forget  an  appointment  which  would  bring  him 
into  her  actual  presence.  And  the  good-natured 
Earl  gave  Gwendolen  a  distant  jocose  hint  to  that 
effect,  which  she  took  with  suitable  quietude.  But 
the  thought  in  her  own  mind  was,  "  Can  he  too 
be  starting  away  from  a  decision  ?"  It  was  not 
exactly  a  pleasant  thought  to  her;  but  it  was 
near  the  truth.  "  Starting  away,"  however,  was 
not  the  right  expression  for  the  languor  of  inten- 
tion that  came  over  Grandcourt,  like  a  fit  of  dis- 
eased numbness,  when  an  end  seemed  within  easy 
reach :  to  desist  then,  when  all  expectation  was 
to  the  contrary,  became  another  gratification  of 
mere  will,  sublimely  independent  of  definite  mo- 


52 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


tive.  At  that  moment  he  had  begun  a  second 
large  cigar  in  a  vague,  hazy  obstinacy  which,  if 
Lush  or  any  other  mortal  who  might  be  insulted 
with  impunity  had  interrupted  by  overtaking  him 
with  a  request  for  his  return,  would  have  express- 
ed itself  by  a  slow  removal  of  his  cigar  to  say,  hi 
an  under-tone,  "  You'll  be  kind  enough  to  go  to 
the  devil,  will  you?" 

But  he  was  not  interrupted,  and  the  rovers  set 
off  without  any  visible  depression  of  spirits,  leav- 
ing behind  only  a  few  of  the  less  vigorous  ladies, 
including  Mrs.  Davilow,  who  preferred  a  quiet 
stroll  free  from  obligation  to  keep  up  with  others. 
The  enjoyment  of  the  day  was  soon  at  its  highest 
pitch,  the  archery  getting  more  spirited  and  the 
changing  scenes  of  the  forest  from  roofed  grove 
to  open  glade  growing  lovelier  with  the  lengthen- 
ing shadows,  and  the  deeply  felt  but  undefinable 
gradations  of  the  mellowing  afternoon.  It  was 
agreed  that  they  were  playing  an  extemporized 
As  You  Like  It ;  and  when  a  pretty  compliment 
had  been  turned  to  Gwendolen  about  her  having 
the  part  of  Rosalind,  she  felt  the  more  compelled 
to  be  surpassing  in  liveliness.  This  was  not  very 
difficult  to  her,  for  the  effect  of  what  had  hap- 
pened to-day  was  an  excitement  which  needed  a 
vent,  a  sense  of  adventure  rather  than  alarm,  and 
a  straining  toward  the  management  of  her  retreat 
so  as  not  to  be  impeded. 

The  roving  had  been  lasting  nearly  an  hour  be- 
fore the  arrival  at  the  Whispering  Stones — two 
tall  conical  blocks  that  leaned  toward  each  other 
like  gigantic  gray-mantled  figures.  They  were 
soon  surveyed  and  passed  by  with  the  remark  that 
they  would  be  good  ghosts  on  a  star-lit  night. 
But  a  soft  sunlight  was  on  them  now,  and  Gwen- 
dolen felt  daring.  The  stones  were  near  a  fine 
grove  of  beeches,  where  the  archers  found  plenty 
of  marks. 

"How  far  are  we  from  Green  Arbor  now?" 
said  Gwendolen,  having  got  in  front  by  the  side 
of  the  warden. 

"  Oh,  not  more  than  half  a  mile,  taking  along 
the  avenue  we're  going  to  cross  up  there :  but  I 
shall  take  round  a  couple  of  miles,  by  the  High 
Cross." 

She  was  falling  back  among  the  rest,  when 
suddenly  they  seemed  all  to  be  hurrying  oblique- 
ly forward  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Lush,  and 
lingering  a  little  where  she  was,  she  perceived 
her  opportunity  of  slipping  away.  Soon  she  was 
out  of  sight,  and  without  running  she  seemed  to 
herself  to  fly  along  the  ground  and  count  the  mo- 
ments nothing  till  she  found  herself  back  again 
at  the  Whispering  Stones.  They  turned  their 
blank  gray  sides  to  her :  what  was  there  on  the 
other  side?  If  there  were  nothing,  after  all? 
That  was  her  only  dread  now — to  have  to  turn 
back  again  in  mystification ;  and  walking  round 
the  right-hand  stone  without  pause,  she  found 
herself  in  front  of  some  one  whose  large  dark 
eyes  met  hers  at  a  foot's  distance.  In  spite  of 
expectation  she  was  startled  and  shrank  back, 
but  in  doing  so  she  could  take  in  the  whole  fig- 
ure of  this  stranger  and  perceive  that  she  was 
unmistakably  a  lady,  and  one  who  must  once  have 
been  exceedingly  handsome.  She  perceived,  also, 
that  a  few  yards  from  her  were  two  children 
seated  on  the  grass. 

"  Miss  Harleth  ?"  said  the  lady. 

"Yes."  All  Gwendolen's  consciousness  was 
wonder. 


"  Have  you  accepted  Mr.  Grandcourt  ?" 

"  No." 

"  I  have  promised  to  tell  you  something.  And 
you  will  promise  to  keep  my  secret.  However 
you  may  decide,  you  will  not  tell  Mr.  Grandcourt, 
or  any  one  else,  that  you  have  seen  me  ?" 

"  I  promise." 

"  My  name  is  Lydia  Glasher.  Mr.  Grandcourt 
ought  not  to  marry  any  one  but  me.  I  left  my 
husband  and  child  for  him  nine  years  ago.  Those 
two  children  are  his,  and  we  have  two  others — 
girls — who  are  older.  My  husband  is  dead  now, 
and  Mr.  Grandcourt  ought  to  marry  me.  He 
ought  to  make  that  boy  his  heir." 

She  looked  toward  the  boy  as  she  spoke,  and 
Gwendolen's  eyes  followed  hers.  The  handsome 
little  fellow  was  puffing  out  his  cheeks  in  trying 
to  blow  a  tiny  trumpet  which  remained  dumb. 
His  hat  hung  backward  by  a  string,  and  his  brown 
curls  caught  the  sun-rays.  He  was  a  cherub. 

The  two  women's  eyes  met  again,  and  Gwen- 
dolen said,  proudly,  "  I  will  not  interfere  with  your 
wishes."  She  looked  as  if  she  were  shivering, 
and  her  lips  were  pale. 

"  You  are  very  attractive,  Miss  Harleth.  But 
when  he  first  knew  me,  I  too  was  young.  Since 
then  my  life  has  been  broken  up  and  imbittered. 
It  is  not  fair  that  he  should  be  happy  and  I  mis- 
erable, and  my  boy  thrust  out  of  sight  for  an- 
other." 

These  words  were  uttered  with  a  biting  accent, 
but  with  a  determined  abstinence  from  any  thing 
violent  in  tone  or  manner.  Gwendolen,  watching 
Mrs.  Glasher's  face  while  she  spoke,  felt  a  sort  of 
terror :  it  was  as  if  some  ghastly  vision  had  come  to 
her  in  a  dream  and  said,  "  I  am  a  woman's  life." 

"  Have  you  any  thing  more  to  say  to  me  ?"  she 
asked,  in  a  low  tone,  but  still  proudly  and  coldly. 
The  revulsion  within  her  was  not  tending  to  softeu 
her.  Every  one  seemed  hateful. 

"Nothing.  You  know  what  I  wished  )-ou  to 
know.  You  can  inquire  about  me  if  you  like. 
My  husband  was  Colonel  Glasher." 

"Then  I  will  go,"  said  Gwendolen,  moving 
away  with  a  ceremonious  inclination,  which  was 
returned  with  equal  grace. 

In  a  few  minutes  Gwendolen  was  in  the  beech 
grove  again,  but  her  party  had  gone  out  of  sight 
and  apparently  had  not  sent  in  search  of  her,  for 
all  was  solitude  till  she  had  reached  the  avenue 
pointed  out  by  the  warden.  She  determined  to 
take  this  way  back  to  Green  Arbor,  which  she 
reached  quickly,  rapid  movements  seeming  to  her 
just  now  a  means  of  suspending  the  thoughts 
which  might  prevent  her  from  behaving  with  due 
calm.  She  had  already  made  up  her  mind  what 
step  she  would  take. 

Mrs.  Davilow  was  of  course  astonished  to  see 
Gwendolen  returning  alone,  and  was  not  without 
some  uneasiness,  which  the  presence  of  other  la- 
dies hindered  her  from  showing.  In  answer  to 
her  words  of  surprise  Gwendolen  said  : 

"  Oh,  I  have  been  rather  silly.  I  lingered  be- 
hind to  look  at  the  Whispering  Stones,  and  the 
rest  hurried  on  after  something,  so  I  lost  sight  of 
them.  I  thought  it  best  to  come  home  by  the 
short  way — the  avenue  that  the  warden  had  told 
me  of.  I'm  not  sorry,  after  all.  I  had  had  enough 
walking." 

"  Your  party  did  not  meet  Mr.  Grandcourt,  I 
presume,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  not  without  in- 
tention. 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


"No,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  little  flash  of 
defiance  and  a  light  laugh.  "  And  we  didn't  see 
any  carvings  on  the  trees  either.  Where  can  he 
be  ?  I  should  think  he  has  fallen  into  the  pool, 
or  had  an  apoplectic  fit." 

With  all  Gwendolen's  resolve  not  to  betray  any 
agitation,  she  could  not  help  it  that  her  tone  was 
unusually  high  and  hard,  and  her  mother  felt  sure 
that  something  unpropitious  had  happened. 

Mrs.  Arrowpoint  thought  that  the  self-confi- 
dent young  lady  was  much  piqued,  and  that  Mr. 
Grandcourt  was  probably  seeing  reason  to  change 
his  mind. 

"  If  you  have  no  objection,  mamma,  I  will  order 
the  carriage,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I  am  tired.  And 
every  one  will  be  going  soon." 

Mrs.  Davilow  assented ;  but  by  the  time  the  car- 
riage was  announced  as  ready — the  horses  having 
to  be  fetched  from  the  stables  on  the  warden's 
premises — the  roving  party  re-appeared,  and  with 
them  Mr.  Grandcourt. 

"Ah,  there  you  are!"  said  Lord  Brackenshaw, 
going  up  to  Gwendolen,  who  was  arranging  her 
mamma's  shawl  for  the  drive.  "  We  thought  at 
first  you  had  alighted  on  Grandcourt  and  he  had 
taken  you  home.  Lush  said  so.  But  after  that 
we  met  Grandcourt.  However,  we  didn't  suppose 
you  could  be  in  any  danger.  The  warden  said  he 
had  told  you  a  near  way  back." 

"  You  are  going  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  coming  up 
with  his  usual  air,  as  if  he  did  not  conceive  that 
there  had  been  any  omission  on  his  part.  Lord 
Brackenshaw  gave  place  to  him  and  moved  away. 

"  Yes,  we  are  going,"  said  Gwendolen,  looking 
busily  at  her  scarf,  which  she  was  arranging 
across  her  shoulders  Scotch  fashion. 

"  May  I  call  at  Offendene  to-morrow  ?" 

"Oh  yes,  if  you  like,"  said  Gwendolen,  sweep- 
ing him  from  a  distance  with  her  eyelashes.  Her 
voice  was  light  and  sharp  as  the  first  touch  of 
frost. 

Mrs.  Davilow  accepted  his  arm  to  lead  her  to 
the  carriage ;  but  while  that  was  happening, 
Gwendolen  with  incredible  swiftness  had  got  in 
advance  of  them  and  had  sprung  into  the  car- 
riage. 

"  I  got  in,  mamma,  because  I  wished  to  be  on 
this  side,"  she  said,  apologetically.  But  she  had 
avoided  Grandcourt's  touch:  he  only  lifted  his 
hat  and  walked  away — with  the  not  unsatisfac- 
tory impression  that  she  meant  to  show  herself 
offended  by  his  neglect. 

The  mother  and  daughter  drove  for  five  min- 
utes in  silence.  Then  Gwendolen  said,  "  I  intend 
to  join  the  Langens  at  Dover,  mamma.  I  shall 
pack  up  immediately  on  getting  home,  and  set  off 
by  the  early  train.  I  shall  be  at  Dover  almost  as 
soon  as  they  are ;  we  can  let  them  know  by  tele- 
graph." 

"  Good  heavens,  child !  what  can  be  your  rea- 
son for  saying  so  ?" 

"  My  reason  for  saying  it,  mamma,  is  that  I 
mean  to  do  it." 

"  But  why  do  you  mean  to  do  it  ?" 

"  I  wish  to  go  away." 

"Is  it  because  you  are  offended  with  Mr. 
Grandcourt's  odd  behavior  in  walking  off  to- 
day?" 

"  It  is  useless  to  enter  into  such  questions.  I 
am  not  going  in  any  case  to  marry  Mr.  Grand- 
court.  Don't  interest  yourself  further  about 
him." 


"  What  can  I  say  to  your  uncle,  Gwendolen  ? 
Consider  the  position  you  place  me  in.  You  led 
him  to  believe  only  last  night  that  you  had  made 
up  your  mind  in  favor  of  Mr.  Grandcourt." 

"I  am  very  sorry  to  cause  you  annoyance, 
mamma  dear,  but  I  can't  help  it,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, with  still  harder  resistance  in  her  tone. 
"  Whatever  you  or  my  uncle  may  think  or  do, 
I  shall  not  alter  my  resolre,  and  I  shall  not  tell 
my  reason.  I  don't  care  what  comes  of  it.  I 
don't  care  if  I  never  marry  any  one.  There  is 
nothing  worth  caring  for.  I  believe  all  men  are 
bad,  and  I  hate  them." 

"But  need  you  set  off  in  this  way,  Gwendo- 
len ?"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  miserable  and  helpless. 

"Now,  mamma,  don't  interfere  with  me.  If 
you  have  ever  had  any  trouble  in  your  own  life, 
remember  it,  and  don't  interfere  with  me.  If  I 
am  to  be  miserable,  let  it  be  by  my  own  choice." 

The  mother  was  reduced  to  trembling  silence. 
She  began  to  see  that  the  difficulty  would  be 
lessened  if  Gwendolen  went  away. 

And  she  did  go.  The  packing  was  all  careful- 
ly done  that  evening,  and  not  long  after  dawn 
the  next  day  Mrs.  Davilow  accompanied  her 
daughter  to  the  railway  station.  The  sweet  dews 
of  morning,  the  cows  and  horses  looking  over  the 
hedges  without  any  particular  reason,  the  early 
travelers  on  foot  with  their  bundles,  seemed  ail 
very  melancholy  and  purposeless  to  them  both. 
Tl^e  dingy  torpor  of  the  railway  station,  before 
the  ticket  could  be  taken,  was  still  worse.  Gwen- 
dolen had  certainly  hardened  in  the  last  twenty- 
four  hours :  her  mother's  trouble  evidently  count- 
ed for  little  in  her  present  state  of  mind,  which 
did  not  essentially  differ  from  the  mood  that 
makes  men  take  to  worse  conduct  when  their 
belief  in  persons  or  things  is  upset.  Gwendo- 
len's uncontrolled  reading,  though  consisting 
chiefly  in  what  are  called  pictures  of  life,  had 
somehow  not  prepared  her  for  this  encounter  with 
reality.  Is  that  surprising  ?  It  is  to  be  believed 
that  attendance  at  the  opera  bouffe  in  the  present 
day  would  not  leave  men's  minds  entirely  without 
shock,  if  the  manners  observed  there  with  some 
applause  were  suddenly  to  start  up  in  their  own 
families.  Perspective,  as  its  inventor  remarked, 
is  a  beautiful  thing.  What  horrors  of  damp 
huts,  where  human  beings  languish,  may  not  be- 
come picturesque  through  aerial  distance !  What 
hymning  of  cancerous  vices  may  we  not  languish 
over  as  sublimest  art  in  the  safe  remoteness  of  a 
strange  language  and  artificial  phrase !  Yet  we 
keep  a  repugnance  to  rheumatism  and  other 
painful  effects  when  presented  in  our  personal 
experience. 

Mrs.  Davilow  felt  Gwendolen's  new  phase  of 
indifference  keenly,  and  as  she  drove  back  alone, 
the  brightening  morning  was  sadder  to  her  than 
before. 

Mr.  Grandcourt  called  that  day  at  Offendene, 
but  nobody  was  at  home. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

"  Festina  lente— celerity  should  be  contcmpered  with 
cunctatioo." — SIR  TUOMAS  BBOWNE. 

GWENDOLEN,  we  have  seen,  passed  her  time 
abroad  in  the  new  excitement  of  gambling,  and 
in  imagining  herself  an  empress  of  luck,  having 


54 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


brought  from  her  late  experience  a  vague  impres- 
sion that  in  this  confused  world  it  signified  noth- 
ing what  any  one  did,  so  that  they  amused  them- 
selves. We  have  seen,  too,  that  certain  persons, 
mysteriously  symbolized  as  Grapnell  and  Co., 
having  also  thought  of  reigning  in  the  realm  of 
luck,  and  being  also  bent  on  amusing  themselves, 
no  matter  how,  had  brought  about  a  painful 
change  in  her  family  circumstances ;  whence  she 
had  returned  home,  carrying  with  her,  against 
her  inclination,  a  necklace  which  she  had  pawned 
and  some  one  else  had  redeemed. 

While  she  was  going  back  to  England,  Grand- 
court  was  coming  to  find  her ;  coming,  that  is, 
after  his  own  manner — not  in  haste  by  express 
straight  from  Diplow  to  Leubronn,  where  she  was 
understood  to  be ;  but  so  entirely  without  hurry 
that  lie  was  induced  by  the  presence  of  some 
Russian  acquaintances  to  linger  at  Baden-Baden 
and  make  various  appointments  with  them,  which, 
however,  his  desire  to  be  at  Leubronn  ultimate- 
ly caused  him  to  break.  Grandcourt's  passions 
were  of  the  intermittent,  flickering  kind :  never 
flaming  out  strongly.  But  a  great  deal  of  life 
goes  on  without  strong  passion :  myriads  of  cra- 
vats are  carefully  tied,  dinners  attended,  even 
speeches  made  proposing  the  health  of  august 
personages,  without  the  zest  arising  from  a  strong 
desire.  And  a  man  may  make  a  good  appearance 
in  high  social  positions,  may  be  supposed  to 
know  the  classics,  to  have  his  reserves  on  sci- 
ence, a  strong  though  repressed  opinion  on  pol- 
itics, and  all  the  sentiments  of  the  English  gen- 
tleman, at  a  small  expense  of  vital  energy.  Also, 
he  may  be  obstinate  or  persistent  at  the  same  low 
rate,  and  may  even  show  sudden  impulses  which 
have  a  false  air  of  daemonic  strength  because 
they  seem  inexplicable,  though  perhaps  their  se- 
cret lies  merely  in  the  want  of  regulated  chan- 
nels for  the  soul  to  move  in — good  and  sufficient 
ducts  of  habit,  without  which  our  nature  easily 
turns  to  mere  ooze  and  mud,  and  at  any  pressure 
yields  nothing  but  a  spurt  or  a  puddle. 

Grandcourt  had  not  been  altogether  displeased 
by  Gwendolen's  running  away  from  the  splendid 
chance  he  was  holding  out  to  her.  The  act  had 
some  piquancy  for  him.  He  liked  to  think  that 
it  was  due  to  resentment  of  his  careless  behavior 
in  Cardell  Chase,  which,  when  he  came  to  consid- 
er it,  did  appear  rather  cool.  To  have  brought 
her  so  near  a  tender  admission,  and  then  to  have 
walked  headlong  away  from  further  opportunities 
of  winning  the  consent  which  he  had  made  her 
understand  him  to  be  asking  for,  was  enough  to 
provoke  a  girl  of  spirit;  and  to  be  worth  his 
mastering  it  was  proper  that  she  should  have 
some  spirit.  Doubtless  she  meant  him  to  follow 
her,  and  it  was  what  he  meant  too.  But  for  a 
whole  week  he  took  no  measures  toward  start- 
ing, and  did  not  even  inquire  where  Miss  Harleth 
was  gone.  Mr.  Lush  felt  a  triumph  that  was 
mingled  with  much  distrust ;  for  Grandcourt  had 
said  no  word  to  him  about  her,  and  looked  as 
neutral  as  an  alligator :  there  was  no  telling  what 
might  turn  up  in  the  slowly  churning  chances  of 
his  mind.  Still,  to  have  put  off  a  decision  was 
to  have  made  room  for  the  waste  of  Grandcourt's 
energy. 

The  guests  at  Diplow  felt  more  curiosity  than 
their  host.  How  was  it  that  nothing  more  was 
heard  of  Miss  Ilark-th  ?  Was  it  credible  that  she 
had  refused  Mr.  Grandcourt  ?  Lady  Flora  Hollis, 


a  lively  middle-aged  woman,  well  endowed  with 
curiosity,  felt  a  sudden  interest  in  making  a  round 
of  calls  with  Mrs.  Torrington,  including  the  Rec- 
tory, Offendene,  and  Quetcham,  and  thus  not  only 
got  twice  over,  but  also  discussed  with  the  Arrow- 
points,  the  information  that  Miss  Harleth  was 
gone  to  Leubronn  with  some  old  friends,  the  Bar- 
on and  Baroness  von  Langen ;  for  the  immediate 
agitation  and  disappointment  of  Mrs.  Davilow 
and  the  Gascoignes  had  resolved  themselves  into 
a  wish  that  Gwendolen's  disappearance  should  not 
be  interpreted  as  any  thing  eccentric  or  needful 
to  be  kept  secret.  The  Rector's  mind,  indeed, 
entertained  the  possibility  that  the  marriage  was 
only  a  little  deferred,  for  Mrs.  Davilow  had  not 
dared  to  tell  him  of  the  bitter  determination  with 
which  Gwendolen  had  spoken.  And  in  spite  of 
his  practical  ability,  some  of  his  experience  had 
petrified  into  maxims  and  quotations.  Amaryllis 
fleeing  desired  that  her  hiding-place  should  be 
known ;  and  that  love  will  find  out  the  way  "  over 
the  mountain  and  over  the  wave"  may  be  said 
without  hyperbole  in  this  age  of  steam.  Gwen- 
dolen, he  conceived,  was  an  Amaryllis  of  excel- 
lent sense  but  coquettish  daring;  the  question 
was  whether  she  had  dared  too  much. 

Lady  Flora,  coming  back  charged  with  news 
about  Miss  Harleth,  saw  no  good  reason  why  she 
should  not  try  whether  she  could  electrify  Mr. 
Grandcourt  by  mentioning  it  to  him  at  table ;  and 
in  doing  so  shot  a  few  hints  of  a  notion  having 
got  abroad  that  he  was  a  disappointed  adorer. 
Grandcourt  heard  with  quietude,  but  with  atten- 
tion ;  and  the  next  day  he  ordered  Lush  to  bring 
about  a  decent  reason  for  breaking  up  the  party 
at  Diplow  by  the  end  of  another  week,  as  he  meant 
to  go  yachting  to  the  Baltic  or  somewhere — it 
being  impossible  to  stay  at  Diplow  as  if  he  were 
a  prisoner  on  parole,  with  a  set  of  people  whom 
he  had  never  wanted.  Lush  needed  no  clearer 
announcement  that  Grandcourt  was  going  to  Leu- 
bronn ;  but  he  might  go  after  the  manner  of  a 
creeping  billiard-ball,  and  stick  on  the  way.  What 
Mr.  Lush  intended  was  to  make  himself  indispen- 
sable so  that  he  might  go  too,  and  he  succeeded ; 
Gwendolen's  repulsion  for  him  being  a  fact  that 
only  amused  his  patron,  and  made  him  none  the 
less  willing  to  have  Lush  always  at  hand. 

This  was  how  it  happened  that  Grandcourt 
arrived  at  the  Czarina  on  the  fifth  day  after 
Gwendolen  had  left  Leubronn,  and  found  there 
his  uncle,  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger,  with  his  family, 
including  Deronda.  It  is  not  necessarily  a  pleas- 
ure either  to  the  reigning  power  or  the  heir-pre- 
sumptive when  their  separate  affairs — a  touch  of 
gout,  say,  in  the  one,  and  a  touch  of  willfulness 
in  the  other — happen  to  bring  them  to  the  same 
spot.  Sir  Hugo  was  an  easy-tempered  man,  tol- 
erant both  of  differences  and  defects ;  but  a  point 
of  view  different  from  his  own  concerning  the 
settlement  of  the  family  estates  fretted  him  rather 
more  than  if  it  had  concerned  Church  discipline 
or  the  ballot,  and  faults  were  the  less  venial  for 
belonging  to  a  person  whose  existence  was  incon- 
venient to  him.  In  no  case  could  Grandcourt 
have  been  a  nephew  after  his  own  heart;  but  as 
the  presumptive  heir  to  the  Mallinger  estates  he 
was  the  sign  and  embodiment  of  a  chief  griev- 
ance in  the  Baronet's  life — the  want  of  a  son  to 
inherit  the  lands,  in  no  portion  of  which  had  he 
himself  more  than  a  life-interest.  For  in  the  ill- 
advised  settlement  which  his  father,  Sir  Francis, 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


had  chosen  to  make  by  will,  even  Diplow  with  its 
modicum  of  land  had  been  left  under  the  same 
conditions  as  the  ancient  and  wide  inheritance  of 
the  two  Toppings — Diplow,  where  Sir  llugo  had 
lived  and  hunted  through  many  a  season  in  his 
younger  years,  and  where  his  wife  and  daughters 
ought  to  have  been  able  to  retire  after  his  death. 

This  grievance  had  naturally  gathered  empha- 
sis as  the  years  advanced,  and  Lady  Mallinger, 
after  having  had  three  daughters  in  quick  succes- 
sion, had  remained  for  eight  years,  till  now  that 
she  was  over  forty,  without  producing  so  much  as 
another  girl ;  while  Sir  Hugo,  almost  twenty  years 
older,  was  at  a  time  of  life  when,  notwithstanding 
the  fashionable  retardation  of  most  things,  from 
dinners  to  marriages,  a  man's  hopefulness  is  apt 
to  show  signs  of  wear,  until  restored  by  second 
childhood. 

In  fact,  he  had  begun  to  despair  of  a  son,  and 
this  confirmation  of  Grandcourt's  interest  hi  the 
estates  certainly  tended  to  make  his  image  and 
presence  the  more  unwelcome ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  carried  circumstances  which  disposed  Sir 
Hugo  to  take  care  that  the  relation  between  them 
should  be  kept  as  friendly  as  possible.  It  led 
him  to  dwell  on  a  plan  which  had  grown  up  side 
by  side  with  his  disappointment  of  an  heir, 
namely,  to  try  and  secure  Diplow  as  a  future 
residence  for  Lady  Mallinger  and  her  daughters, 
and  keep  this  pretty  bit  of  the  family  inheritance 
for  his  own  offspring  in  spite  of  that  disappoint- 
ment. Such  knowledge  as  he  had  of  his  nephew's 
disposition  and  affairs  encouraged  the  belief  that 
Grandcourt  might  consent  to  a  transaction  by 
which  he  would  get  a  good  sum  of  ready  money 
as  an  equivalent  for  his  prospective  interest  in 
the  domain  of  Diplow  and  the  moderate  amount 
of  land  attached  to  it.  If,  after  all,  the  unhoped- 
for son  should  be  born,  the  money  would  have 
been  thrown  away,  and  Grandcourt  would  have 
been  paid  for  giving  up  interests  that  had  turned 
out  good  for  nothing  ;  but  Sir  Hugo  set  down  this 
risk  as  nil,  and  of  late  years  he  had  husbanded  his 
fortune  so  well  by  the  working  of  mines  and  the 
sale  of  leases  that  he  was  prepared  for  an  outlay. 

Here  was  an  object  that  made  him  careful  to 
avoid  any  quarrel  with  Grandcourt.  Some  years 
before,  when  he  was  making  improvements  at  the 
Abbey,  and  needed  Grandcourt's  concurrence  in 
his  felling  an  obstructive  mass  of  timber  on  the 
demesne,  he  had  congratulated  himself  on  finding 
that  there  was  no  active  spite  against  him  in  his 
nephew's  peculiar  mind ;  and  nothing  had  since 
occurred  to  make  them  hate  each  other  more  than 
was  compatible  with  perfect  politeness,  or  with 
any  accommodation  that  could  be  strictly  mutual. 

Grandcourt,  on  his  side,  thought  his  uncle  a 
superfluity  and  a  bore,  and  felt  that  the  list  of 
things  in  general  would  be  improved  whenever 
Sir  Hugo  came  to  be  expunged.  But  he  had  been 
made  aware  through  Lush,  always  a  useful  me- 
dium, of  the  Baronet's  inclinations  concerning 
Diplow,  and  he  was  gratified  to  have  the  altern 
tive  of  the  money  in  his  mind :  even  if  he  had  not 
thought  it  in  the  least  likely  that  he  would  choose 
to  accept  it,  his  sense  of  power  would  have  been 
flattered  by  his  being  able  to  refuse  what  Sir  Hugo 
desired.  The  hinted  transaction  had  told  for 
something  among  the  motives  which  had  made 
him  ask  for  a  year's  tenancy  of  Diplow,  which  it 
had  rather  annoyed  Sir  Hugo  to  grant,  because 
the  excellent  hunting  in  the  neighborhood  might 


decide  Grandcourt  not  to  part  with  his  chance  of 
future  possession— a  man  who  has  two  places,  in 
one  of  which  the  hunting  is  less  good,  naturally 
desiring  a  third  where  it  is  better.  Also,  Lush 
tiad  thrown  out  to  Sir  Hugo  the  probability  that 
Srandcourt  would  woo  and  win  Miss  Arrowpoint, 
nd  in  that  case  ready  money  might  be  less  of  a 
temptation  to  him.  .  Hence,  on  this  unexpected ' 
meeting  at  Leubronn,  the  Baronet  felt  much  cu- 
riosity to  know  how  things  had  been  going  on  at 
Diplow,  was  bent  on  being  as  civil  as  possible  to 
tiis  nephew,  and  looked  forward  to  some  private 
chat  with  Lush. 

Between  Deronda  and  Grandcourt  there  was  a 
more  faintly  marked  but  peculiar  relation,  de- 
pending on  circumstances  which  have  yet  to  be 
made  known.  But  on  no  side  was  there  any  sign 
of  suppressed  chagrin  on  the  first  meeting  at  the 
'able  d'hote,  an  hour  after  Grandcourt's  arrival ; 
and  when  the  quartette  of  gentlemen  afterward 
met  on  the  terrace,  without  Lady  Mallinger,  they 
moved  off  together  to  saunter  through  the  rooms, 
Sir  Hugo  saying  as  they  entered  the  large  saal, 

"  Did  you  play  much  at  Baden,  Grandcourt  ?" 

"  No ;  I  looked  on  and  betted  a  little  with  some 
Russians  there." 

"  Had  you  luck  ?" 

"  What  did  I  win,  Lush  ?" 

"  You  brought  away  about  two  hundred,"  said 
Lush. 

"  You  are  not  here  for  the  sake  of  the  play, 
then  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo. 

'  No ;  I  don't  care  about  play  now.  It's  a  con- 
founded strain,"  said  Grandcourt,  whose  diamond 
ring  and  demeanor,  as  he  moved  along,  playing 
slightly  with  his  whisker,  were  being  a  good  deal 
stared  at  by  rouged  foreigners  interested  in  a  new 
milord. 

"  The  fact  is,  somebody  should  invent  a  mill  to 
do  amusements  for  you,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Sir 
Hugo,  "as  the  Tartars  get  their  praying  done. 
But  I  agree  with  you;  I  never  cared  for  play. 
It's  monotonous — knits  the  brain  up  into  meshes. 
And  it  knocks  me  up  to  watch  it  now.  I  sup- 
pose one  gets  poisoned  with  the  bad  air.  I  nev- 
er stay  here  more  than  ten  minutes.  But  where's 
your  gambling  beauty,  Deronda  ?  Have  you  seen 
her  lately  ?" 

"  She's  gone,"  said  Deronda,  curtly. 

"  An  uncommonly  fine  girl — a  perfect  Diana," 
said  Sir  Hugo,  turning  to  Grandcourt  again. 
"  Really  worth  a  little  straining  to  look  at  her. 
I  saw  her  winning,  and  she  took  it  as  coolly  as 
if  she  had  known  it  all  beforehand.  The  same 

fire,  and  she  bore  it  with  immense  pluck.  I  sup- 
pose she  was  cleaned  out,  or  was  wise  enough  to 
stop  in  time.  How  do  you  know  she's  gone  ?" 

"  Oh,  by  the  visitor  list,"  said  Deronda,  with  a 
scarcely  perceptible  shrug.  "  Vandernoodt  told 
me  her  name  was  Harleth,  and  she  was  with  the 
Baron  and  Baroness  von  Langen.  I  saw  by  the 
list  that  Miss  Harleth  was  no  longer  there." 

This  held  no  further  information  for  Lush  than 
that  Gwendolen  had  been  gambling.  He  had 
already  looked  at  the  list,  and  ascertained  that 
Gwendolen  had  gone,  but  he  had  no  intention 
of  thrusting  this  knowledge  on  Grandcourt  before 
he  asked  for  it ;  and  he  had  not  asked,  finding  it 
enough  to  believe  that  the  object  of  search  would 
turn  up  somewhere  or  other. 

But  now  Graudcourt  had  heard  what  was  rather 


66 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


piquant,  and  not  a  word  about  Miss  Harleth  had 
been  missed  by  him.  After  a  moment's  pause  he 
said  to  Deronda, 

"  Do  you  know  those  people — the  Langens  ?" 

"I  have  talked  with  them  a  little  since  Miss 
Harleth  went  away.  I  knew  nothing  of  them  be- 
fore." 

"  Where  is  she  gone — do  you  know  ?" 

"  She  is  gone  home,"  said  Deronda,  coldly,  as  if 
he  wished  to  say  no  more.  But  then,  from  a  fresh 
impulse,  he  turned  to  look  markedly  at  Grand- 
court,  and  added,  "  But  it  is  possible  you  know 
her.  Her  home  is  not  far  from  Diplow :  Offen- 
dene,  near  Wancester." 

Deronda,  turning  to  look  straight  at  Grandcourt, 
who  was  on  his  left  hand,  might  have  been  a  sub- 
ject for  those  old  painters  who  liked  contrasts  of 
temperament.  There  was  a  calm  intensity  of  life 
and  richness  of  tint  in  his  face  that  on  a  sudden 
gaze  from  him  was  rather  startling,  and  often 
made  him  seem  to  have  spoken,  so  that  servants 
and  officials  asked  him,  automatically,  "  What  did 
you  say,  Sir?"  when  he  had  been  quite  silent. 
Grandcourt  himself  felt  an  irritation,  which  he 
did  not  show  except  by  a  slight  movement  of  the 
eyelids,  at  Deronda's  turning  round  on  him  when 
he  was  not  asked  to  do  more  than  speak.  But 
he  answered,  with  his  usual  drawl,  "  Yes,  I  know 
her,"  and  paused,  with  his  shoulder  toward  De- 
ronda, to  look  at  the  gambling. 

"  What  of  her,  eh  ?"  asked  Sir  Hugo  of  Lush, 
as  the  three  moved  on  a  little  way.  "  She  must 
be  a  new-comer  at  Offendene.  Old  Blenny  lived 
there  after  the  dowager  died." 

"  A  little  too  much  of  her,"  said  Lush,  in  a  low, 
significant  tone,  not  sorry  to  let  Sir  Hugo  know 
the  state  of  affairs. 

"Why?  how?"  said  the  Baronet.  They  all 
moved  out  of  the  salon  into  a  more  airy  promenade. 

"  He  has  been  on  the  brink  of  marrying  her," 
Lush  went  on.  "  But  I  hope  it's  off  now.  She's  a 
niece  of  the  clergyman — Gascoigne — at  Pennicote. 
Her  mother  is  a  widow  with  a  brood  of  daughters. 
This  girl  will  have  nothing,  and  is  as  dangerous 
as  gunpowder.  It  would  be  a  foolish  marriage. 
But  she  has  taken  a  freak  against  him,  for  she 
ran  off  here  without  notice,  when  he  had  agreed 
to  call  the  next  day.  The  fact  is,  he's  here  after 
her ;  but  he  was  in  no  great  hurry,  and  between 
his  caprice  and  hers,  they  are  likely  enough  not 
to  get  together  again.  But  of  course  he  has  lost 
his  chance  with  the  heiress." 

Grandcourt,  joining  them,  said,  "  What  a  beast- 
ly den  this  is !— a  worse  hole  than  Baden !  I  shall 
go  back  to  the  hotel." 

When  Sir  Hugo  and  Deronda  were  alone,  the 
Baronet  began : 

"Rather  a  pretty  story.  That  girl  has  some 
drama  in  her.  She  must  be  worth  running  after 
—has  de  Vimprevu.  I  think  her  appearance  on 
the  scene  has  bettered  my  chance  of  getting  Dip- 
low,  whether  the  marriage  comes  off  or  not." 

"  I  should  hope  a  marriage  like  that  would  not 
come  o%"  said  Deronda,  in  a  tone  of  disgust. 

"  Wh$t !  are  you  a  little  touched  with  the  sub- 
lime lash'?"  said  Sir  Hugo,  putting  up  his  glasses 
to  help  his,  short  sight  in  looking  at  his  compan- 
ion. "  Are  you  inclined  to  run  after  her  ?" 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Deronda,  "  I  should 
rather  be  inclined  to  run  away  from  her." 

"  Why,  you  would  easily  cut  out  Grandcourt. 
A  girl  with  her  spirit  would  think  you  the  finer 


match  of  the  two,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  who  often  tried 
Deronda's  patience  by  finding  a  joke  in  impossi- 
ble advice.  (A  difference  of  taste  in  jokes  is  a 
great  strain  on  the  affections.) 

"  I  suppose  pedigree  and  land  belong  to  a  fine 
match,"  said  Deronda,  coldly. 

"  The  best  horse  will  win  in  spite  of  pedigree, 
my  boy.  You  remember  Napoleon's  mot — Je  suis 
ancetrc,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  who  habitually  underval- 
ued birth,  as  men  after  dining  well  often  agree 
that  the  good  of  life  is  distributed  with  wonderful 
equality. 

"  I  am  not  sure  that  I  want  to  be  an  ancestor," 
said  Deronda.  "  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  the  rarest 
sort  of  origination." 

"  You  won't  run  after  the  pretty  gambler,  then  ?" 
said  Sir  Hugo,  putting  down  his  glasses. 

"  Decidedly  not." 

This  answer  was  perfectly  truthful ;  neverthe- 
less it  had  passed  through  Deronda's  mind  that 
under  other  circumstances  he  should  have  given 
way  to  the  interest  this  girl  had  raised  in  him, 
and  tried  to  know  more  of  her.  But  his  history 
had  given  him  a  stronger  bias  hi  another  direc- 
tion. He  felt  himself  in  no  sense  free. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Men,  like  planets,  have  both  a  visible  and  an  invis- 
ible history.  The  astronomer  threads  the  darkness 
with  strict  deduction,  accounting  so  for  every  visible 
arc  in  the  wanderer's  orbit ;  and  the  narrator  of  human 
actions,  if  he  did  his  work  with  the  same  completeness, 
would  have  to  thread  the  hidden  pathways  of  feeling 


and  thought  which  lead  up  to  every  moment  of  action, 
and  to  those  moments  of  intense  suffering  which  ti ' 
the  quality  of  action— like  the  cry  of  Prometheus, 


hose  chained  anguish  seems  a  greater  energy  than 
the  sea  and  sky  he  invokes  and  the  deity  he  denes. 

DERONDA'S  circumstances,  indeed,  had  been  ex- 
ceptional. One  moment  had  been  burned  into 
his  life  as  its  chief  epoch — a  moment  full  of  July 
sunshine  and  large  pink  roses  shedding  their  last 
petals  on  a  grassy  court  inclosed  on  three  sides 
by  a  Gothic  cloister.  Imagine  him  in  such  a 
scene :  a  boy  of  thirteen,  stretched  prone  on  the 
grass  where  it  was  in  shadow,  his  curly  head 
propped  on  his  arms  over  a  book,  while  his  tu- 
tor, also  reading,  sat  on  a  camp-stool  under  shel- 
ter. Deronda's  book  was  Sismondi's  History  of 
tJie  Italian  Republics :  the  lad  had  a  passion  for 
history,  eager  to  know  how  time  had  been  filled 
up  since  the  Flood,  and  how  things  were  carried 
on  in  the  dull  periods.  Suddenly  he  let  down  his 
left  arm  and  looked  at  his  tutor,  saying,  in  purest 
boyish  tones, 

"  Mr.  Fraser,  how  was  it  that  the  popes  and 
cardinals  always  had  so  many  nephews  ?" 

The  tutor,  an  able  young  Scotchman  who  acted 
as  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger's  secretary,  roused  rather 
unwillingly  from  his  political  economy,  answered, 
with  the  clear-cut,  emphatic  chant  which  makes 
a  truth  doubly  telling  in  Scotch  utterance, 

"  Their  own  children  were  called  nephews." 

"  Why  ?"  said  Deronda. 

"  It  was  just  for  the  propriety  of  the  thing ; 
because,  as  you  know  very  well,  priests  don't 
marry,  and  the  children  were  illegitimate." 

Mr.  Fraser,  thrusting  out  his  lower  lip  and 
making  his  chant  of  the  last  word  the  more  em- 
phatic for  a  little  impatience  at  being  interrupt- 
ed, had  already  turned  his  eyes  on  his  book  again, 
while  Deronda,  as  if  something  had  stung  him, 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


started  up  in  a  sitting  attitude  with  his  back  to 
the  tutor. 

He  had  always  called  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  his 
uncle,  and  when  it  once  occurred  to  him  to  ask 
about  his  father  and  mother,  the  Baronet  had  an- 
swered, "  You  lost  your  father  and  mother  when 
you  were  quite  a  little  one ;  that  is  why  I  take  care 
of  you."  Daniel  then  straining  to  discern  some- 
thing in  that  early  twilight,  had  a  dim  sense  of 
having  been  kissed  very  much,  and  surrounded 
by  thin,  cloudy,  scented  drapery,  till  his  ringers 
caught  in  something  hard,  which  hurt  him,  and 
he  began  to  cry.  Every  other  memory  he  had 
was  of  the  little  world  in  which  he  still  lived. 
And  at  that  time  he  did  not  mind  about  learning 
more,  for  he  was  too  fond  of  Sir  Hugo  to  be  sorry 
for  the  loss  of  unknown  parents.  Life  was  very 
delightful  to  the  lad,  with  an  uncle  who  was  al- 
ways indulgent  and  cheerful — a  fine  man  in  the 
bright  noon  of  life,  whom  Daniel  thought  abso- 
lutely perfect,  and  whose  place  was  one  of  the 
finest  in  England,  at  once  historical,  romantic, 
and  home-like:  a  picturesque  architectural  out- 
growth from  an  abbey,  which  had  still  remnants 
of  the  old  monastic  trunk.  Diplow  lay  in  anoth- 
er county,  and  was  a  comparatively  landless  place 
which  had  come  into  the  family  from  a  rich  law- 
yer on  the  female  side,  who  wore  the  perruque  of 
the  Restoration ;  whereas  the  Mallingers  had  the 
grant  of  Monk's  Topping  under  Henry  the  Eighth, 
and  ages  before  had  held  the  neighboring  lands 
of  King's  Topping,  tracing  indeed  their  origin  to 
a  certain  Hugues  le  Malingre,  who  came  in  with 
the  Conqueror — and  also  apparently  with  a  sickly 
complexion,  which  had  been  happily  corrected  in 
his  descendants.  Two  rows  of  these  descendants, 
direct  and  collateral,  females  of  the  male  line,  and 
males  of  the  female,  looked  down  in  the  gallery 
over  the  cloisters  on  the  nephew  Daniel  as  he 
walked  there :  men  in  armor  with  pointed  beards 
and  arched  eyebrows,  pinched  ladies  in  hoops  and 
ruffs  with  no  face  to  speak  of ;  grave-looking  men 
in  black  velvet  and  stuffed  hips,  and  fair,  fright- 
ened women  holding  little  boys  by  the  hand ; 
smiling  politicians  in  magnificent  perruques,  and 
ladies  of  the  prize-animal  kind,  with  rose-bud 
mouths  and  full  eyelids,  according  to  Lely ;  then 
a  generation  whose  faces  were  revised  and  embel- 
lished in  the  taste  of  Kneller ;  and  so  on  through 
refined  editions  of  the  family  types  in  the  time  of 
Reynolds  and  Romney,  till  the  "line  ended  with  Sir 
Hugo  and  his  younger  brother  Henleigh.  This 
last  had  married  Miss  Grandcourt,  and  taken  her 
name  along  with  her  estates,  thus  making  a  junc- 
tion between  two  equally  old  families,  impaling  the 
three  Saracens'  heads  proper  and  three  bezants  of 
the  one  with  the  tower  and  falcons  argent  of  the 
other,  and,  as  it  happened,  uniting  their  highest 
advantages  in  the  prospects  of  that  Henleigh  Mal- 
linger Grandcourt  who  is  at  present  more  of  an 
acquaintance  to  us  than  either  Sir  Hugo  or  his 
nephew  Daniel  Deronda. 

In  Sir  Hugo's  youthful  portrait,  with  rolled  col- 
lar and  high  cravat,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  had 
done  justice  to  the  agreeable  alacrity  of  expres- 
sion and  sanguine  temperament  still  to  be  seen 
in  the  original,  but  had  done  something  more 
than  justice  in  slightly  lengthening  the  nose, 
which  was  in  reality  shorter  than  might  have 
been  expected  in  a  Mallinger.  Happily  the  ap- 
propriate nose  of  the  family  re-appeared  in  his 
younger  brother,  and  was  to  be  seen  in  all  its  re- 


fined regularity  in  his  nephew  Mallinger  Grand- 
court.  But  in  the  nephew  Daniel  Deronda  the 
family  faces  of  various  types,  seen  on  the  walls 
of  the  gallery,  found  no  reflex.  Still,  he  was  hand- 
somer than  any  of  them,  and  when  he  was  thir- 
teen might  have  served  as  model  for  any  painter 
who  wanted  to  image  the  most  memorable  of 
boys  :  you  could  hardly  have  seen  his  face  thor- 
oughly meeting  yours  without  believing  that  hu- 
man creatures  had  done  nobly  in  times  past,  and 
might  do  more  nobly  in  time  to  come.  The  finest 
child-like  faces  have  this  consecrating  power,  and 
make  us  shudder  anew  at  all  the  grossness  and 
basely  wrought  griefs  of  the  world,  lest  they 
should  enter  here  and  defile. 

But  at  this  moment  on  the  grass  among  the 
rose  petals  Daniel  Deronda  was  making  a  first 
acquaintance  with  those  griefs.  A  new  idea  had 
entered  his  mind,  and  was  beginning  to  change 
the  aspect  of  his  habitual  feelings,  as  happy  care- 
less voyagers  are  changed  when  the  sky  suddenly 
threatens  and  the  thought  of  danger  arises.  He 
sat  perfectly  still  with  his  back  to  the  tutor,  while 
his  face  expressed  rapid  inward  transition.  The 
deep  blush,  which  had  come  when  he  first  start- 
ed up,  gradually  subsided  ;  but  his  features  kept 
that  indescribable  look  of  subdued  activity  which 
often  accompanies  a  new  mental  survey  of  famil- 
iar facts.  He  had  not  lived  with  other  boys,  and 
his  mind  showed  the  same  blending  of  child's  ig- 
norance with  surprising  knowledge  which  is  often- 
er  seen  in  bright  girls.  Having  read  Shakspeare 
as  well  as  a  great  deal  of  history,  he  could  have 
talked  with  the  wisdom  of  a  bookish  child  about 
men  who  were  born  out  of  wedlock  and  were 
held  unfortunate  in  consequence,  being  under 
disadvantages  which  required  them  to  be  a  sort 
of  heroes  if  they  were  to  work  themselves  up  to 
an  equal  standing  with  their  legally  born  broth- 
ers. But  he  had  never  brought  such  knowledge 
into  any  association  with  his  own  lot,  which  had 
been  too  easy  for  him  ever  to  think  about  it — 
until  this  moment  when  there  had  darted  into 
his  mind  with  the  magic  of  quick  comparison  the 
possibility  that  here  was  the  secret  of  his  own 
birth,  and  that  the  man  whom  he  called  uncle  was 
really  his  father.  Some  children,  even  younger 
than  Daniel,  have  known  the  first  arrival  of  care, 
like  an  ominous  irremovable  guest  in  their  tender 
lives,  on  the  discovery  that  their  parents,  whom 
they  had  imagined  able  to  buy  every  thing,  were 
poor  and  in  hard  money  troubles.  Daniel  felt 
the  presence  of  a  new  guest  who  seemed  to  come 
with  an  enigmatic  veiled  face,  and  to  carry  dim- 
ly conjectured,  dreaded  revelations.  The  ardor 
which  he  had  given  to  the  imaginary  world  in 
his  books  suddenly  rushed  toward  his  own  his- 
tory and  spent  its  pictorial  energy  there,  explain- 
ing what  he  knew,  representing  the  unknown. 
The  uncle  whom  he  loved  very  dearly  took  the 
aspect  of  a  father  who  held  secrets  about  him, 
who  had  done  him  a  wrong — yes,  a  wrong :  and 
what  had  become  of  his  mother,  from  whom  he 
must  have  been  taken  away? — secrets  about 
which  he,  Daniel,  could  never  inquire;  for  to 
speak  or  be  spoken  to  about  these  new  thoughts 
seemed  like  falling  flakes  of  fire  to  his  imagina- 
tion. Those  who  have  known  an  impassioned 
childhood  will  understand  this  dread  of  utterance 
about  any  shame  connected  with  their  parents. 
The  impetuous  advent  of  new  images  took  pos- 
session of  him  with  the  force  of  fact  for  the  first 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


time  told,  and  left  him  no  immediate  power  for 
the  reflection  that  he  might  be  trembling  at  a 
fiction  of  his  own.  The  shocking  sense  of  collision 
between  a  strong  rush  of  feeling  and  the  dread 
of  its  betrayal  found  relief  at  length  in  big  slow 
tears,  which  fell  without  restraint  until  the  voice 
of  Mr.  Fraser  was  heard,  saying, 

"Daniel,  do  you  see  that  you  are  sitting  on  the 
bent  pages  of  your  book  ?" 

Daniel  immediately  moved  the  book  without 
turning  round,  and  after  holding  it  before  him  for 
an  instant,  rose  with  it  and  walked  away  into  the 
open  grounds,  where  he  could  dry  his  tears  un- 
observed. The  first  shock  of  suggestion  past,  he 
could  remember  that  he  had  no  certainty  how 
things  really  had  been,  and  that  he  had  been 
making  conjectures  about  his  own  history,  as  he 
had  often  made  stories  about  Pericles  or  Colum- 
bus, just  to  fill  up  the  blanks  before  they  became 
famous.  Only  there  came  back  certain  facts 
which  had  an  obstinate  reality — almost  like  the 
fragments  of  a  bridge,  telling  you  unmistakably 
how  the  arches  lay.  And  again  there  came  a 
mood  in  which  his  conjectures  seemed  like  a 
doubt  of  religion,  to  be  banished  as  an  offense, 
and  a  mean  prying  after  what  he  was  not  meant 
to  know ;  for  there  was  hardly  a  delicacy  of  feel- 
ing this  lad  was  not  capable  of.  But  the  summing 
up  of  all  his  fluctuating  experience  at  this  epoch 
was  that  a  secret  impression  had  come  to  him 
which  had  given  him  something  like  a  new  sense 
in  relation  to  all  the  elements  of  his  life.  And 
the  idea  that  others  probably  knew  things  con- 
cerning him  which  they  did  not  choose  to  men- 
tion, and  which  he  would  not  have  had  them 
mention,  set  up  in  him  a  premature  reserve 
which  helped  to  intensify  his  inward  experience. 
His  ears  were  open  now  to  words  which  before 
that  July  day  would  have  passed  by  him  un- 
noted; and  round  every  trivial  incident  which 
imagination  could  connect  with  his  suspicions  a 
newly  roused  set  of  feelings  were  ready  to  clus- 
ter themselves. 

One  such  incident  a  month  later  wrought  itself 
deeply  into  his  life.  Daniel  had  not  only  one  of 
those  thrilling  boy  voices  which  seem  to  bring 
an  idyllic  heaven  and  earth  before  our  eyes,  but  a 
fine  musical  instinct,  and  had  early  made  out  ac- 
companiments for  himself  on  the  piano,  while  he 
sang  from  memory.  Since  then  he  had  had  some 
teaching,  and  Sir  Hugo,  who  delighted  in  the  boy, 
used  to  ask  for  his  music  in  the  presence  of 
guests.  One  morning  after  he  had  been  singing 
"  Sweet  Echo"  before  a  small  party  of  gentlemen 
whom  the  rain  had  kept  in  the  house,  the  Bar- 
onet, passing  from  a  smiling  remark  to  his  next 
neighbor,  said, 

"  Come  here,  Dan !" 

The  boy  came  forward  with  unusual  reluc- 
tance. He  wore  an  embroidered  holland  blouse 
which  set  off  the  rich  coloring  of  his  head  and 
throat,  and  the  resistant  gravity  about  his  mouth 
and  eyes  as  he  was  being  smiled  upon  made  their 
beauty  the  more  impressive.  Every  one  was  ad- 
miring him. 

"  What  do  you  say  to  being  a  great  singer  ? 
,  Should  you  like  to  be  adored  by  the  world  and 
take  the  house  by  storm,  like  Mario  and  Tara- 
berlik?" 

Daniel  reddened  instantaneously,  but  there  was 
a  just  perceptible  interval  before  he  answered, 
with  angry  decision, 


"  No ;  I  should  hate  it !" 

"  Well,  well,  well,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  with  sur- 
prised kindliness  intended  to  be  soothing.  But 
Daniel  turned  away  quickly,  left  the  room,  and 
going  to  his  own  chamber,  threw  himself  on  the 
broad  window-sill,  which  was  a  favorite  retreat  of 
his  when  he  had  nothing  particular  to  do.  Here 
he  could  see  the  rain  gradually  subsiding  with 
gleams  through  the  parting  clouds  which  lit  up  a 
great  reach  of  the  park,  where  the  old  oaks  stood 
apart  from  each  other,  and  the  bordering  wood  was 
pierced  with  a  green  glade  which  met  the  eastern 
sky.  This  was  a  scene  which  had  always  been  part 
of  his  home — part  of  the  dignified  ease  which 
had  been  a  matter  of  course  in  his  life.  And  his 
ardent  clinging  nature  had  appropriated  it  all  with 
affection.  He  knew  a  great  deal  of  what  it  was 
to  be  a  gentleman  by  inheritance,  and  without 
thinking  much  about  himself — for  he  was  a  boy 
of  active  perceptions,  and  easily  forgot  his  own 
existence  in  that  of  Robert  Bruce — he  had  never 
supposed  that  he  could  be  shut  out  from  such  a 
lot,  or  have  a  very  different  part  in  the  world  from 
that  of  the  uncle  who  petted  him.  It  is  possible 
(though  not  greatly  believed  in  at  present)  to  be 
fond  of  poverty  and  take  it  for  a  bride,  to  prefer 
scoured  deal,  red  quarries,  and  whitewash  for  one's 
private  surroundings,  to  delight  in  no  splendor 
but  what  has  open  doors  for  the  whole  nation,  and 
to  glory  in  having  no  privilege  except  such  as  na- 
ture insists  on ;  and  noblemen  have  been  known 
to  run  away  from  elaborate  ease  and  the  option 
of  idleness,  that  they  might  bind  themselves  for 
small  pay  to  hard-handed  labor.  But  Daniel's 
tastes  were  altogether  in  keeping  with  his  nurture : 
his  disposition  was  one  in  which  cvery-day  scenes 
and  habits  beget  not  ennui  or  rebellion,  but  de- 
light, affection,  aptitudes ;  and  now  the  lad  had 
been  stung  to  the  quick  by  the  idea  that  his  uncle 
— perhaps  his  father — thought  of  a  career  for  him 
which  was  totally  unlike  his  own,  and  which  he 
knew  very  well  was  not  thought  of  among  possible 
destinations  for  the  sons  of  English  gentlemen. 
He  had  often  staid  in  London  with  Sir  Hugo, 
who  to  indulge  the  boy's  ear  had  carried  him  to 
the  opera  to  hear  the  great  tenors,  so  that  the 
image  of  a  singer  taking  the  house  by  storm  was 
very  vivid  to  him ;  but  now,  spite  of  his  musical 
gift,  he  set  himself  bitterly  against  the  notion 
of  being  dressed  up  to  sing  before  all  those  fine 
people  who  would  not  care  about  him  except  as 
a  wonderful  toy.  That  Sir  Hugo  should  have 
thought  of  him  in  that  position  for  a  moment 
seemed  to  Daniel  an  unmistakable  proof  that 
there  was  something  about  his  birth  which  threw 
him  out  from  the  class  of  gentlemen  to  which 
the  Baronet  belonged.  Would  it  ever  be  men- 
tioned to  him  ?  Would  the  time  come  when  his 
uncle  would  tell  him  every  thing  ?  He  shrank 
from  the  prospect:  in  his  imagination  he  pre- 
ferred ignorance.  If  his  father  had  been  wicked 
— Daniel  inwardly  used  strong  words,  for  he 
was  feeling  the  injury  done  him  as  a  maimed 
boy  feels  the  crushed  limb  which  for  others  is 
merely  reckoned  in  an  average  of  accidents — if 
his  father  had  done  any  wrong,  lie  wished  it  might 
never  be  spoken  of  to  him:  it  was  already  a 
cutting  thought  that  such  knowledge  might  be  in 
other  minds.  Was  it  in  Mr.  Eraser's  ?  probably 
not,  else  he  would  not  have  spoken  in  that  way 
about  the  popes'  nephews :  Daniel  fancied,  as  old- 
er people  do,  that  every  one  else's  consciousness 


BOOK   II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


was  as  active  as  his  own  on  a  matter  which  was 
vital  to  him.  Did  Turvey,  the  valet,  know  ?  and 
old  Mrs.  French,  the  housekeeper  ?  and  Banks, 
the  bailiff,  with  whom  he  had  ridden  about  the 
farms  on  his  pony  ?  And  now  there  came  back 
the  recollection  of  a  day  some  years  before  when 
he  was  drinking  Mrs.  Banks's  whey,  and  Banks 
said  to  his  wife,  with  a  wink  and  a  cunning  laugh, 
"  He  features  the  mother,  eh  ?"  At  that  time 
little  Daniel  had  merely  thought  that  Banks  made 
a  silly  face,  as  the  common  fanning  men  often 
did— laughing  at  what  was  not  laughable;  and 
he  rather  resented  being  winked  at  and  talked  of 
as  if  he  did  not  understand  every  thing.  But 
now  that  small  incident  became  information:  it 
was  to  be  reasoned  on.  How  could  he  be  like 
his  mother  and  not  like  his  father  ?  His  mother 
must  have  been  a  Mallinger,  if  Sir  Hugo  were  his 
uncle.  But  no!  His  father  might  have  been 
Sir  Hugo's  brother  and  have  changed  his  name, 
as  Mr.  Henleigh  Malliuger  did  when  he  married 
Miss  Grandcourt.  But  then,  why  had  he  never 
heard  Sir  Hugo  speak  of  his  brother  Deronda,  as 
he  spoke  of  his  brother  Grandcourt  ?  Daniel  had 
never  before  cared  about  the  family  tree — only 
about  that  ancestor  who  had  killed  three  Saracens 
in  one  encounter.  But  now  his  mind  turned  to  a 
cabinet  of  estate  maps  in  the  library,  where  he 
had  once  seen  an  illuminated  parchment  hanging 
out,  that  Sir  Hugo  said  was  the  family  tree.  The 
phrase  was  new  and  odd  to  him — he  was  a  little 
fellow  then,  hardly  more  than  half  his  present 
age — and  he  gave  it  no  precise  meaning.  He 
knew  more  now,  and  wished  that  he  could  exam- 
ine that  parchment.  He  imagined  that  the  cab- 
inet was  always  locked,  and  longed  to  try  it.  But 
here  he  checked  himself.  He  might  be  seen; 
and  he  would  never  bring  himself  near  even  a  si- 
lent admission  of  the  sore  'that  had  opened  in  him. 
It  is  in  such  experiences  of  boy  or  girlhood, 
while  elders  are  debating  whether  most  education 
lies  in  science  or  literature,  that  the  main  lines  of 
character  are  often  laid  down.  If  Daniel  had  been 
of  a  less  ardently  affectionate  nature,  the  reserve 
about  himself  and  the  supposition  that  others  had 
something  to  his  disadvantage  in  their  minds, 
might  have  turned  into  a  hard,  proud  antagonism. 
But  inborn  lovingness  was  strong  enough  to  keep 
itself  level  with  resentment.  There  was  hardly 
any  creature  in  his  habitual  world  that  he  was 
not  fond  of ;  teasing  them  occasionally,  of  course 
— all  except  his  uncle,  or  "  Nunc,"  as  Sir  Hugo 
had  taught  him  to  say ;  for  the  Baronet  was  the 
reverse  of  a  strait-laced  man,  and  left  his  dignity 
to  take  care  of  itself.  Him  Daniel  loved  in  that 
deep-rooted  filial  way  which  makes  children  al- 
ways the  happier  for  being  in  the  same  room  with 
father  or  mother,  though  their  occupations  may 
be  quite  apart.  Sir  Hugo's  watch-chain  and  seals, 
his  handwriting,  his  mode  of  smoking  and  of  talk- 
ing to  his  dogs  and  horses,  had  all  a  Tightness  and 
charm  about  them  to  the  boy  which  went  along 
with  the  happiness  of  morning  and  breakfast- 
time.  That  Sir  Hugo  had  always  been  a  Whig 
made  Tories  and  Radicals  equally  opponents  of 
the  truest  and  best ;  and  the  books  he  had  writ- 
ten were  all  seen  under  the  same  consecration  of 
loving  belief  which  differenced  what  was  his  from 
what  was  not  his,  in  spite  of  general  resemblance. 
Those  writings  were  various,  from  volumes  of 
travel  in  the  brilliant  style  to  articles  on  things 
in  general,  and  pamphlets  on  political  crises ;  but 


to  Daniel  they  were  alike  in  having  an  unquestion- 
able Tightness  by  which  other  people's  informa- 
tion could  be  tested. 

Who  can  not  imagine  the  bitterness  of  a  first 
suspicion  that  something  in  this  object  of  com- 
plete love  was  not  quite  right  ?  Children  demand 
that  their  heroes  should  be  flecklcss,  and  easily 
believe  them  so :  perhaps  a  first  discovery  to  the 
contrary  is  hardly  a  less  revolutionary  shock  to  a 
passionate  child  than  the  threatened  downfall  of 
habitual  beliefs  which  makes  the  world  seem  to 
totter  for  us  in  maturer  life. 

But  some  time  after  this  renewal  of  Daniel's 
agitation  it  appeared  that  Sir  Hugo  must  have 
been  making  a  merely  playful  experiment  in  his 
question  about  the  singing.  He  sent  for  Daniel 
into  the  library,  and  looking  up  from  his  writing 
as  the  boy  entered,  threw  himself  sideways  in  his 
arm-chair.  "  Ah,  Dan !"  he  said,  kindly,  drawing 
one  of  the  old  embroidered  stools  close  to  him. 

Come  and  sit  down  here." 

Daniel  obeyed,  and  Sir  Hugo  put  a  gentle  hand 
on  his  shoulder,  looking  at  him  affectionately. 

"  What  is  it,  my  boy  ?  Have  you  heard  any 
thing  that  has  put  you  out  of.  spirits  lately  ?" 

Daniel  was  determined  not  to  let  the  tears  come, 
but  he  could  not  speak. 

•  "All  changes  are  painful  when  people  have 
been  happy,  you  know,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  lifting  his 
hand  from  the  boy's  shoulder  to  his  dark  curls 
and  rubbing  them  gently.  "  You  can't  be  educated 
exactly  as  I  wish  you  to  be  without  our  parting. 
And  I  think  you  will  find  a  great  deal  to  like  at 
school." 

This  was  not  what  Daniel  expected,  and  was  so 
far  a  relief,  which  gave  him  spirit  to  answer, 

"  Am  I  to  go  to  school  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  mean  you  to  go  to  Eton.  I  wish  you 
to  have  the  education  of  an  English  gentleman ; 
and  for  that  it  is  necessary  that  you  should  go  to 
a  public  school  in  preparation  for  the  university : 
Cambridge  I  mean  you  to  go  to ;  it  was  my  own 
university." 

Daniel's  color  came  and  went. 

"  What  do  you  say,  Sirrah  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo, 
smiling. 

"  I  should  like  to  be  a  gentleman,"  said  Daniel, 
with  firm  distinctness,  "  and  go  to  school,  if  that 
is  what  a  gentleman*s  son  must  do." 

Sir  Hugo  watched  him  silently  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, thinking  he  understood  now  why  the  lad 
had  seemed  angry  at  the  notion  of  becoming  a 
singer.  Then  he  said,  tenderly, 

"  And  so  you  won't  mind  about  leaving  your 
old  Nunc  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  shall,"  said  Daniel,  clasping  Sir  Hugo's 
caressing  arm  with  both  his  hands.  "  But  sha'n't 
I  come  home  and  be  with  you  in  the  holidays  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  generally,"  said  Sir  Hugo.  "  But  now 
I  mean  you  to  go  at  once  to  a  new  tutor,  to  break 
the  change  for  you  before  you  go  to  Eton." 

After  this  interview  Daniel's  spirit  rose  again. 
He  was  meant  to  be  a  gentleman,  and  in  some  un- 
accountable way  it  might  be  that  his  conjectures 
were  all  wrong.  The  very  keenness  of  the  lad 
taught  him  to  find  comfort  in  his  ignorance. 
While  he  was  busying  his  mind  in  the  construc- 
tion of  possibilities,  it  became  plain  to  him  that 
there  must  be  possibilities  of  which  he  knew  noth- 
ing. He  left  off  brooding,  young  joy  and  the  spir- 
it of  adventure  not  being  easily  quenched  within 
him,  and  in  the  interval  before  his  going  away  he 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


sang  about  the  house,  danced  among  the  old  serv- 
ants, making  them  parting  gifts,  and  insisted 
many  times  to  the  groom  on  the  care  that  was  to 
be  taken  of  the  black  pony. 

"  Do  you  think  I  shall  know  much  less  than 
the  other  boys,  Mr.  Fraser  ?"  said  Daniel.  It  was 
his  bent  to  think  that  every  stranger  would  be 
surprised  at  his  ignorance. 

"  There  are  dunces  to  be  found  every  where," 
said  the  judicious  Fraser.  "You'll  not  be  the 
biggest ;  but  you've  not  the  makings  of  a  Person 
in  you,  or  a  Leibnitz  either." 

"  I  don't  want  to  be  a  Person  or  a  Leibnitz," 
said  Daniel.  "  I  would  rather  be  a  greater  lead- 
er, like  Pericles  or  Washington." 

"Ay,  ay;  you've  a  notion  they  did  with  little 
parsing,  and  less  algebra,"  said  Fraser.  But  in 
reality  he  thought  his  pupil  a  remarkable  lad,  to 
whom  one  thing  was  as  easy  as  another  if  he  had 
only  a  mind  to  it. 

Things  went  very  well  with  Daniel  in  his  new 
world,  except  that  a  boy  with  whom  he  was  at 
once  inclined  to  strike  up  a  close  friendship  talked 
to  him  a  great  deal  about  his  home  and  parents, 
and  seemed  to  expeot  a  like  expansiveness  in  re- 
turn. Daniel  immediately  shrank  into  reserve, 
and  this  experience  remained  a  check  on  his  nat- 
urally strong  bent  toward  the  formation  of  inti- 
mate friendships.  Every  one,  his  tutor  included, 
set  him  down  as  a  reserved  boy,  though  he  was 
so  good-humored  and  unassuming,  as  well  as  quick 
both  at  study  and  sport,  that  nobody  called  his 
reserve  disagreeable.  Certainly  his  face  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  that  favorable  interpreta- 
tion ;  but  in  this  instance  the  beauty  of  the  closed 
lips  told  no  falsehood. 

A  surprise  that  came  to  him  before  his  first 
vacation  strengthened  the  silent  consciousness  of 
a  grief  within,  which  might  be  compared  in  some 
ways  with  Byron's  susceptibility  about  his  de- 
formed foot.  Sir  Hugo  wrote  word  that  he  was 
married  to  Miss  Raymond,  a  sweet  lady  whom 
Daniel  must  remember  having  seen.  The  event 
would  make  no  difference  about  his  spending  the 
vacation  at  the  Abbey ;  he  would  find  Lady  Mai- 
linger  a  new  friend  whom  he  would  be  sure  to 
love — and  much  more  to  the  usual  effect  when  a 
man,  having  done  something  agreeable  to  himself, 
is  disposed  to  congratulate  others  on  his  own 
good  fortune,  and  the  deducible  satisfactoriness 
of  events  in  general. 

Let  Sir  Hugo  be  partly  excused  until  the 
grounds  of  his  action  can  be  more' fully  known. 
The  mistakes  in  his  behavior  to  Deronda  were 
due  to  that  dullness  toward  what  may  be  going 
on  in  other  minds,  especially  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren, which  is  among  the  commonest  deficiencies 
even  in  good-natured  men  like  him,  when  life  has 
been  generally  easy  to  themselves,  and  their  ener- 
gies have  been  quietly  spent  in  feeling  gratified. 
Kb  one  was  better  aware  than  he  that  Daniel  was 
generally  suspected  to  be  his  own  son.  But  he 
was  pleased  with  that  suspicion ;  and  his  imagi- 
nation had  never  once  been  troubled  with  the  way 
in  which  the  boy  himself  might  be  affected,  either 
then  or  in  the  future,  by  the  enigmatic  aspect  of 
his  circumstances.  He  was  as  fond  of  him  as 
could  be,  and  meant  the  best  by  him.  And  con- 
sidering the  lightness  with  which  the  preparation 
of  young  lives  seems  to  lie  on  respectable  con- 
Sciences,  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  can  hardly  be  held 
open  to  exceptional  reproach.  He  had  been  a 


bachelor  till  he  was  five-and-forty,  had  always 
been  regarded  as  a  fascinating  man  of  elegant 
tastes :  what  could  be  more  natural,  even  accord- 
ing to  the  index  of  language,  than  that  he  should 
have  a  beautiful  boy  like  the  little  Deronda  to 
take  care  of?  The  mother  might  even  perhaps 
be  in  the  great  world — met  with  in  Sir  Hugo's 
residences  abroad.  The  only  person  to  feel  any 
objection  was  the  boy  himself,  who  could  not 
have  been  consulted.  And  the  boy's  objections 
had  never  been  dreamed  of  by  any  body  but  him- 
self. 

By  the  time  Deronda  was  ready  to  go  to  Cam- 
bridge, Lady  Mallinger  had  already  three  daugh- 
ters— charming  babies,  all  three,  but  whose  sex 
was  announced  as  a  melancholy  alternative,  the 
offspring  desired  being  a  son :  if  Sir  Hugo  had 
no  son,  the  succession  must  go  to  his  nephew 
Mallinger  Grandcourt.  Daniel  no  longer  held  a 
wavering  opinion  about  his  own  birth.  His  fuller 
knowledge  had  tended  to  convince  him  that  Sir 
Hugo  was  his  father,  and  he  conceived  that  the 
Baronet,  since  he  never  approached  a  communi- 
cation on  the  subject,  wished  him  to  have  a  tacit 
understanding  of  the  fact,  and  to  accept  in  silence 
what  would  be  generally  considered  more  than 
the  due  love  and  nurture.  Sir  Hugo's  marriage 
might  certainly  have  been  felt  as  a  new  ground 
of  resentment  by  some  youths  in  Deronda's  posi- 
tion, and  the  timid  Lady  Mallinger  with  her  fast- 
coming  little  ones  might  have  been  images  to 
scowl  at,  as  likely  to  divert  much  that  was  dis- 
posable in  the  feelings  and  possessions  of  the 
Baronet  from  one  who  felt  his  own  claim  to  be 
prior.  But  hatred  of  innocent  human  obstacles 
was  a  form  of  moral  stupidity  not  in  Deronda's 
grain ;  even  the  indignation  which  had  long  min- 
gled itself  with  his  affection  for  Sir  Hugo  took 
the  quality  of  pain  rather  than  of  temper ;  and 
as  his  mind  ripened  to  the  idea  of  tolerance  to- 
ward error,  he  habitually  linked  the  idea  with  his 
own  silent  grievances. 

The  sense  of  an  entailed  disadvantage — the  de- 
formed foot  doubtfully  hidden  by  the  shoe — makes 
a  restlessly  active  spiritual  yeast,  and  easily  turns 
a  self-centred,  unloving  nature  into  an  Ishmaelite. 
But  in  the  rarer  sort,  who  presently  see  their  own 
frustrated  claim  as  one  among  a  myriad,  the  in- 
exorable sorrow'takes  the  form  of  fellowship  and 
makes  the  imaginalion  tender.  Deronda's  early- 
wakened  susceptibility,  charged  at  first  with  ready 
indignation  and  resistant  pride,  had  raised  in  him 
a  premature  reflection  on  certain  questions  of  life ; 
it  had  given  a  bias  to  his  conscience,  a  sympathy 
with  certain  ills,  and  a  tension  of  resolve  in  cer- 
tain directions,  which  marked  him  off  from  other 
youths  much  more  than  any  talents  he  possessed. 

One  day  near  the  end  of  the  Long  Vacation, 
when  he  had  been  making  a  tour  in  the  Rhine- 
land  with  his  Eton  tutor,  and  was  come  for  a 
farewell  stay  at  the  Abbey  before  going  to  Cam- 
bridge, he  said  to  Sir  Hugo, 

"  What  do  you  intend  me  to  be,  Sir  ?"  They 
were  in  the  library,  and  it  was  the  fresh  morning. 
Sir  Hugo  had  called  him  in  to  read  a  letter  from 
a  Cambridge  Don  who  was  to  be  interested  in 
him ;  and  since  the  Baronet  wore  an  air  at  once 
business-like  and  leisurely,  the  moment  seemed 
propitious  for  entering  on  a  grave  subject  which 
had  never  yet  been  thoroughly  discussed. 

"  Whatever  your  inclination  leads  you  to,  my 
boy.  I  thought  it  right  to  give  you  the  option  of 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


61 


the  army,  but  you  shut  the  door  on  that,  and  I 
was  glad.  I  don't  expect  you  to  choose  just  yet 
— by-and-by,  when  you  have  looked  about  you  a 
little  more  and  tried  your  mettle  among  older 
men.  The  university  has  a  good  wide  opening 
into  the  forum.  There  are  prizes  to  be  won,  and 
a  bit  of  good  fortune  often  gives  the  turn  to  a 
man's  taste.  From  what  I  see  and  hear,  I  should 
think  you  can  take  up  any  thing  you  like.  You 
are  in  deeper  water  with  your  classics  than  I  ever 
got  into,  and  if  you  are  rather  sick  of  that  swim- 
ming, Cambridge  is  the  place  where  you  can  go 
into  mathematics  with  a  will,  and  disport  yourself 
on  the  dry  sand  as  much  as  you  like.  I  flounder- 
ed along  like  a  carp." 

"  I  suppose  money  will  make  some  difference, 
Sir,"  said  Daniel,  blushing.  "I  shall  have  to 
keep  myself  by-and-by." 

"  Not  exactly.  I  recommend  you  not  to  be  ex- 
travagant— yes,  yes,  I  know ;  you  are  not  inclined 
to  that — but  you  need  not  take  up  any  thing 
against  the  grain.  You  will  have  a  bachelor's 
income — enough  for  you  to  look  about  with. 
Perhaps  I  had  better  tell  you  that  you  may  con- 
sider yourself  secure  of  seven  hundred  a  year. 
You  might  make  yourself  a  barrister — be  a  writer 
— take  up  politics.  I  confess  that  is  what  would 
please  me  best.  I  should  like  to  have  you  at  my 
elbow  and  pulling  with  me." 

Deronda  looked  embarrassed.  He  felt  that  he 
ought  to  make  some  sign  of  gratitude,  but  other 
feelings  clogged  his  tongue.  A  moment  was  pass- 
ing by  in  which  a  question  about  his  birth  was 
throbbing  within  him,  and  yet  it  seemed  more 
impossible  than  ever  that  the  question  should  find 
vent — more  impossible  than  ever  that  he  could 

The 
s  the 
more  striking  because  the  Baronet  had  of  late 


hear  certain  things  from  Sir  Hugo's  lips, 
liberal  way  in  which  he  was  dealt  with  wa 


cared  particularly  for  money,  and  for  making  the 
utmost  of  his  life-interest  in  the  estate  by  way  of 
providing  for  his  daughters ;  and  as  all  this  flash- 
ed through  Daniel's  mind,  it  was  momentarily 
within  his  imagination  that  the  provision  for  him 
might  come  in  some  way  from  his  mother.  But 
such  vaporous  conjecture  passed  away  as  quickly 
as  it  came. 

Sir  Hugo  appeared  not  to  notice  any  thing  pe- 
culiar in  Daniel's  manner,  and  presently  went  on 
with  his  usual  chatty  liveliness. 

"I'm  glad  you  have  done  some  good  reading 
outside  your  classics,  and  have  got  a  grip  of 
French  and  German.  The  truth  is,  unless  a  man 
can  get  the  prestige  and  income  of  a  Don  and 
write  donnish  books,  it's  hardly  worth  while  for 
him  to  make  a  Greek  and  Latin  machine  of  him- 
self and  be  able  to  spin  you  out  pages  of  the 
Greek  dramatists  at  any  verse  you'll  give  him  as 
a  cue.  That's  all  very  fine,  but  in  practical  life 
nobody  does  give  you  the  cue  for  pages  of  Greek. 
In  fact,  it's  a  nicety  of  conversation  which  I  would 
have  you  attend  to — much  quotation  of  any  sort, 
even  in  English,  is  bad.  It  tends  to  choke  ordi- 
nary remark.  One  couldn't  carry  on  life  com- 
fortably without  a  little  blindness  to  the  fact  that 
every  thing  has  been  said  better  than  we  can  put 
it  ourselves.  But  talking  of  Dons,  I  have  seen 
Dons  make  a  capital  figure  in  society ;  and  occa- 
sionally he  can  shoot  you  down  a  cart-load  of 
learning  in  the  right  place,  which  will  tell  in  pol- 
itics. Such  men  are  wanted ;  and  if  you  have  any 
turn  for  being  a  Don,  I  say  nothing  against  it." 


"I  think  there's  not  much  chance  of  that. 
Quicksett  and  Puller  are  both  stronger  than  I 
am.  I  hope  you  will  not  be  much  disappointed 
if  I  don't  come  out  with  high  honors." 

"No,  no.  I  should  like  you  to  do  yourself 
credit,  but  for  God's  sake  don't  come  out  as  a 
superior  expensive  kind  of  idiot,  like  young 
Brecon,  who  got  a  Double-First,  and  has"  been 
learning  to  knit  braces  ever  since.  What  I  wish 
you  to  get  is  a  passport  in  life.  I  don't  go 
against  our  university  system:  we  want  a  little 
disinterested  culture  to  make  head  against  cotton 
and  capital,  especially  in  the  House.  My  Greek 
has  all  evaporated :  if  I  had  to  construe  a  verse 
on  a  sudden,  I  should  get  an  apoplectic  fit.  But 
it  formed  my  taste.  I  dare  say  my  English  is  the 
better  for  it." 

On  this  point  Daniel  kept  a  respectful  silence. 
The  enthusiastic  belief  in  Sir  Hugo's  writings  as 
a  standard,  and  in  the  Whigs  as  the  chosen  race 
among  politicians,  had  gradually  vanished  along 
with  the  seraphic  boy's  face.  He  had  not  been 
the  hardest  of  workers  at  Eton.  Though  some 
kinds  of  study  and  reading  came  as  easily  as  boat- 
ing to  him,  he  was  not  of  the  material  that  usu- 
ally makes  the  first-rate  Eton  scholar.  There 
had  sprung  up  in  him  a  meditative  yearning  after 
wide  knowledge  which  is  likely  always  to  abate 
ardor  in  the  fight  for  prize  acquirement  hi  nar- 
row tracks.  Happily  he  was  modest,  and  took  any 
second-rateness  in  himself  simply  as  a  fact,  not 
as  a  marvel  necessarily  to  be  accounted  for  by  a 
superiority.  Still,  Mr.  Eraser's  high  opinion  of  the 
lad  had  not  been  altogether  belied  by  the  youth : 
Daniel  had  the  stamp  of  rarity  in  a  subdued  fer- 
vor of  sympathy,  an  activity  of  imagination  on 
behalf  of  others,  which  did  not  show  itself  effu- 
sively, but  was  continually  seen  in  acts  of  con- 
siderateness  that  struck  his  companions  as  moral 
eccentricity.  "  Deronda  would  have  been  first-rate 
if  he  had  had  more  ambition,"  was  a  frequent  re- 
mark  about  him.  But  how  could  a  fellow  pu^h 
his  way  properly  when  he  objected  to  swop  for 
his  own  advantage,  knocked  under  by  choice 
when  he  was  within  an  inch  of  victory,  and,  un- 
like the  great  Clive,  would  rather  be  the  calf 
than  the  butcher  ?  It  was  a  mistake,  however,  to 
suppose  that  Deronda  had  not  his  share  of  ambi- 
tion :  we  know  he  had  suffered  keenly  from  the 
belief  that  there  was  a  tinge  of  dishonor  in  his 
lot ;  but  there  are  some  cases,  and  his  was  one  of 
them,  in  which  the  sense  of  injury  breeds — not 
the  will  to  inflict  injuries  and  climb  over  them  as 
a  ladder,  but — a  hatred  of  all  injury.  He  had 
his  flashes  of  fierceness,  and  could  hit  out  upon 
occasion,  but  the  occasions  were  not  always  what 
might  have  been  expected.  For  in  what  related 
to  himself  his  resentful  impulses  had  been  early 
checked  by  a  mastering  affectionateness.  Love 
has  a  habit  of  saying  "Never  mind"  to  angry 
self,  who,  sitting  down  for  the  nonce  in  the  lower 
place,  by-and-by  gets  used  to  it.  So  it  was  that  as 
Deronda  approached  manhood  his  feeling  for  Sir 
Hugo,  while  it  was  getting  more  and  more  mixed 
with  criticism,  was  gaining  in  that  sort  of  allow- 
ance which  reconciles  criticism  with  tenderness. 
The  dear  old  beautiful  home  and  every  thing 
within  it,  Lady  Mallinger  and  her  little  ones  in- 
cluded, were  consecrated  for  the  youth  as  they 
had  been  for  the  boy — only  with  a  certain  differ- 
ence of  light  on  the  objects.  The  altarpiece  was 
no  longer  miraculously  perfect,  painted  under  in- 


62 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


fallible  guidance,  but  the  human  hand  discerned 
in  the  work  was  appealing  to  a  reverent  tender- 
ness safer  from  the  gusts  of  discovery.  Certain- 
Iv  Deronda's  ambition,  even  in  his  spring-time, 
lay  exceptionally  aloof  from  conspicuous,  vulgar 
triumph,  and  from  other  ugly  forms  of  boyish  en- 
ergy ;  perhaps  because  he  was  early  impassioned 
by  ideas,  and  burned  his  fire  on  those  heights. 
One  may  spend  a  good  deal  of  energy  in  disliking 
and  resisting  what  others  pursue,  and  a  boy  who 
is  fond  of  somebody  else's  pencil-case  may  not  be 
more  energetic  than  another  who  is  fond  of  giv- 
ing his  own  pencil-case  away.  Still,  it  was  not 
Deronda's  disposition  to  escape  from  ugly  scenes : 
he  was  more  inclined  to  sit  through  them  and 
take  care  of  the  fellow  least  able  to  take  care  of 
himself.  It  had  helped  to  make  him  popular 
that  he  was  sometimes  a  little  compromised  by 
this  apparent  comradeship.  For  a  meditative  in- 
terest in  learning  how  human  miseries  are  wrought 
— as  precocious  in  him  as  another  sort  of  genius 
in  the  poet  who  writes  a  Queen  Mab  at  nineteen 
— was  so  infused  with  kindliness  that  it  easily 
passed  for  comradeship.  Enough.  In  many  of 
our  neighbors'  lives  there  is  much  not  only  of 
error  and  lapse,  but  of  a  certain  exquisite  good- 
ness which  can  never  be  written  or  even  spoken 
— only  divined  by  each  of  us,  according  to  the  in- 
ward instruction  of  our  own  privacy. 

The  impression  he  made  at  Cambridge  corre- 
sponded to  his  position  at  Eton.  Every  one  in- 
terested in  him  agreed  that  he  might  have  taken 
a  high  place  if  his  motives  had  been  of  a  more 
pushing  sort,  and  if  he  had  not,  instead  of  re- 
garding studies  as  instruments  of  success,  ham- 
pered himself  with  the  notion  that  they  were  to 
feed  motive  and  opinion — a  notion  which  set  him 
criticising  methods  and  arguing  against  his  freight 
and  harness  when  he  should  have  been  using  all 
his  might  to  pull.  In  the  beginning  his  work  at 
the  university  had  a  new  zest  for  him :  indifferent 
to  the  continuation  of  the  Eton  classical  drill,  he 
applied  himself  vigorously  to  mathematics,  for 
which  he  had  shown  an  early  aptitude  under  Mr. 
Eraser,  and  he  had  the  delight  of  feeling  his 
strength  in  a  comparatively  fresh  exercise  of 
thought.  That  delight,  and  the  favorable  opinion 
of  his  tutor,  determined  him  to  try  for  a  mathe- 
matical scholarship  in  the  Easter  of  his  second 
year:  he  wished  to  gratify  Sir  Hugo  by  some 
achievement,  and  the  study  of  the  higher  mathe- 
matics, having  the  growing  fascination  inherent 
in  all  thinking  which  demands  intensity,  was 
making  him  a  more  exclusive  worker  than  he 
had  been  before. 

But  here  came  the  old  check  which  had  been 
growing  with  his  growth.  He  found  the  inward 
bent  toward  comprehension  and  thoroughness 
diverging  more  and  more  from  the  track  marked 
out  by  the  standards  of  examination :  he  felt  a 
heightening  discontent  with  the  wearing  futility 
and  enfeebling  strain  of  a  demand  for  excessive 
retention  and  dexterity  without  any  insight  into 
the  principles  which  form  the  vital  connections 
of  knowledge.  (Deronda's  under-graduateship  oc- 
curred fifteen  years  ago,  when  the  perfection  of 
our  university  methods  was  not  yet  indisputable.) 
In  hours  when  his  dissatisfaction  was  strong  upon 
him  he  reproached  himself  for  having  been  at- 
tracted by  the  conventional  advantage  of  belong- 
ing to  an  English  university,  and  was  tempted 
toward  the  project  of  asking  Sir  Hugo  to  let  him 


quit  Cambridge  and  pursue  a  more  independent 
line  of  study  abroad.  The  germs  of  this  inclina- 
tion had  been  already  stirring  in  his  boyish  love 
of  universal  history,  which  made  him  want  to  be 
at  home  in  foreign  countries,  and  follow  in  im- 
agination the  traveling  students  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  He  longed  now  to  have  the  sort  of  ap- 
prenticeship to  life  which  would  not  shape  him 
too  definitely,  and  rob  him  of  the  choice  that 
might  come  from  a  free  growth.  One  sees  that 
Deronda's  demerits  were  likely  to  be  on  the  side 
of  reflective  hesitation,  and  this  tendency  was  en- 
couraged by  his  position :  there  was  no  need  for 
him  to  get  an  immediate  income,  or  to  fit  himself 
in  haste  for  a  profession ;  and  his  sensibility  to 
the  half-known  facts  of  his  parentage  made  him 
an  excuse  for  lingering  longer  than  others  in  a 
state  of  social  neutrality.  Other  men,  he  inward- 
ly said,  had  a  more  definite  place  and  duties. 
But  the  project  which  flattered  his  inclination 
might  not  have  gone  beyond  the  stage  of  inef- 
fective brooding,  if  certain  circumstances  had 
not  quickened  it  into  action. 

The  circumstances  arose  out  of  an  enthusiastic 
friendship  which  extended  into  his  after  -  life. 
Of  the  same  year  with  himself,  and  occupying 
small  rooms  close  to  his,  was  a  youth  who  had 
come  as  an  exhibitioner  from  Christ's  Hospital, 
and  had  eccentricities  enough  for  a  Charles  Lamb. 
Only  to  look  at  his  pinched  features  and  blonde 
hair  hanging  over  his  collar  reminded  one  of  pale 
quaint  heads  by  early  German  painters ;  and  when 
this  faint  coloring  was  lit  up  by  a  joke,  there 
came  sudden  creases  about  the  mouth  and  eyes 
which  might  have  been  moulded  by  the  soul  of 
an  aged  humorist.  His  father,  an  engraver  of 
some  distinction,  had  been  dead  eleven  years,  and 
his  mother  had  three  girls  to  educate  and  main- 
tain on  a  meagre  annuity.  Hans  Meyrick — he 
had  been  daringly  christened  after  Holbein — felt 
himself  the  pillar,  or  rather  the  knotted  and  twist- 
ed trunk,  round  which  these  feeble  climbing  plants 
must  cling.  There  was  no  want  of  ability  or  of 
honest  well-meaning  affection  to  make  the  prop 
trustworthy :  the  ease  and  quickness  with  which 
he  studied  might  serve  him  to  win  prizes  at  Cam- 
bridge, as  he  had  done  among  the  Blue  Coats,  in 
spite  of  irregularities.  The  only  danger  was  that 
the  incalculable  tendencies  in  him  might  be  fa- 
tally timed,  and  that  his  good  intentions  might  be 
frustrated  by  some  act  which  was  not  due  to  habit, 
but  to  capricious,  scattered  impulses.  He  could 
not  be  said  to  have  any  one  bad  habit ;  yet  at 
longer  or  shorter  intervals  he  had  fits  of  impish 
recklessness,  and  did  things  that  would  have  made 
the  worst  habits. 

Hans  in  his  right  mind,  however,  was  a  lovable 
creature,  and  in  Deronda  he  had  happened  to  find 
a  friend  who  was  likely  to  stand  by  him  with  the 
more  constancy,  from  compassion  for  these  brief 
aberrations  that  might  bring  a  long  repentance. 
Hans,  indeed,  shared  Deronda's  rooms  nearly  as 
much  as  he  used  his  own :  to  Deronda  he  poured 
himself  out  on  his  studies,  his  affairs,  his  hopes ; 
the  poverty  of  his  home,  and  his  love  for  the 
creatures  there ;  the  itching  of  his  fingers  to  draw, 
and  his  determination  to  fight  it  away  for  the  sake 
of  getting  some  sort  of  plum  that  he  might  divide 
with  his  mother  and  the  girls.  He  wanted  no 
confidence  in  return,  but  seemed  to  take  Deronda 
as  an  Olympian  who  needed  nothing — an  egotism 
in  friendship  which  is  common  enough  with  mer- 


BOOK  H.— MEETIXG  STREAMS. 


curial,  expansive  natures.  Deronda  was  content, 
and  gave  Meyrick  all  the  interest  he  claimed,  get- 
ting at  last  a  brotherly  anxiety  about  him,  look- 
ing after  him  in  his  erratic  moments,  and  con- 
triving by  adroitly  delicate  devices  not  only  to 
make  up  for  his  friend's  lack  of  pence,  but  to 
save  him  from  threatening  chances.  Such  friend- 
ship easily  becomes  tender :  the  one  spreads 
strong  sheltering  wings  that  delight  in  spread- 
ing ;  the  other  gets  the  warm  protection  which  is 
also  a  delight.  Meyrick  was  going  in  for  a  classic- 
al scholarship,  and  his  success,  in  various  ways  mo- 
mentous, was  the  more  probable  from  the  steady- 
ing influence  of  Deronda's  friendship. 

But  an  imprudence  of  Meyrick's,  committed  at 
the  beginning  of  the  autumn  term,  threatened  to 
disappoint  his  hopes.  With  his  usual  alternation 
between  unnecessary  expense  and  self-privation, 
he  had  given  too  much  money  for  an  old  engrav- 
ing which  fascinated  him,  and,  to  make  up  for  it, 
had  come  from  London  in  a  third-class  carriage, 
with  his  eyes  exposed  to  a  bitter  wind  and  any 
irritating  particles  the  wind  might  drive  before  it. 
The  consequence  was  a  severe  inflammation  of 
the  eyes,  which  for  some  time  hung  over  him  the 
threat  of  a  lasting  injury.  This  crushing  trouble 
called  out  all  Deronda's  readiness  to  devote  him- 
self, and  he  made  every  other  occupation  second- 
ary to  that  of  being  companion  and  eyes  to  Hans, 
working  with  him  and  for  him  at  his  classics,  that 
if  possible  his  chance  of  the  classical  scholarship 
might  be  saved.  Hans,  to  keep  the  knowledge  of 
his  suffering  from  his  mother  and  sisters,  alleged 
his  work  as  a  reason  for  passing  the  Christmas 
at  Cambridge,  and  his  friend  staid  up  with  him. 

Meanwhile  Deronda  relaxed  his  hold  on  his 
mathematics,  and  Hans,  reflecting  on  this,  at 
length  said,  "  Old  fellow,  while  you  are  hoisting 
me  you  are  risking  yourself.  With  your  mathe- 
matical cram  one  may  be  like  Moses  or  Moham- 
med or  somebody  of  that  sort  who  had  to  cram, 
and  forgot  in  one  day  what  it  had  taken  him  forty 
to  learn." 

Deronda  would  not  admit  that  he  cared  about 
the  risk,  and  lie  had  really  been  beguiled  into  a 
little  indifference  by  double  sympathy:  he  was 
very  anxious  that  Hans  should  not  miss  the  much- 
needed  scholarship,  and  he  felt  a  revival  of  inter- 
est in  the  old  studies.  Still,  when  Hans,  rather 
late  in  the  day,  got  able  to  use  his  own  eyes,  De- 
ronda had  tenacity  enough  to  try  hard  and  recov- 
er his  lost  ground.  He  failed,  however ;  but  he 
had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  Meyrick  win. 

Success,  as  a  sort  of  beginning  that  urged  com- 
pletion, might  have  reconciled  Deronda  to  his  uni- 
versity course ;  but  the  emptiness  of  all  things, 
from  politics  to  pastimes,  is  never  so  striking  to 
us  as  when  we  fail  in  them.  The  loss  of  the  per- 
sonal triumph  had  no  severity  for  him,  but  the 
sense  of  having  spent  his  time  ineffectively  in  a 
mode  of  working  which  had  been  against  the 
grain  gave  him  a  distaste  for  any  renewal  of  the 
process,  which  turned  his  imagined  project  of 
quitting  Cambridge  into  a  serious  intention.  In 
speaking  of  his  intention  to  Meyrick  he  made  it 
appear  that  he  was  glad  of  the  turn  events  had 
taken — glad  to  have  the  balance  dip  decidedly, 
and  feel  freed  from  his  hesitations ;  but  he  ob- 
served that  he  must,  of  course,  submit  to  any 
strong  objection  on  the  part  of  Sir  Hugo. 

Meyrick's  joy  and  gratitude  were  disturbed  by 
much  uneasiness.  He  believed  in  Deronda's  al- 


leged preference,  but  he  felt  keenly  that  in  serving 
him,  Daniel  had  placed  himself  at  a  disadvantage 
in  Sir  Hugo's  opinion,  and  he  said,  mournfully, 
"  If  you  had  got  the  scholarship,  Sir  Hugo  would 
have  thought  that  you  asked  to  leave  us  with  a 
better  grace.  You  have  spoiled  your  luck  for  my 
sake,  and  I  can  do  nothing  to  mend  it." 

"  Yes,  you  can ;  you  are  to  be  a  first-rate  fellow. 
I  call  that  a  first-rate  investment  of  my  luck." 

"  Oh,  confound  it !  You  save  an  ugly  mongrel 
from  drowning,  and  expect  him  to  cut  a  fine  fig- 
ure. The  poets  have  made  tragedies  enough 
about  signing  one's  self  over  to  wickedness  for 
the  sake  of  getting  something  plummy ;  I  shall 
write  a  tragedy  of  a  fellow  who  signed  himself 
over  to  be  good,  and  was  uncomfortable  ever 
after." 

But  Hans  lost  no  time  in  secretly  writing  the 
history  of  the  affair  to  Sir-  Hugo,  making  it  plain 
that  but  for  Deronda's  generous  devotion  he  could 
hardly  have  failed  to  win  the  prize  he  had  been 
working  for. 

The  two  friends  went  up  tb  town  together: 
Meyrick  to  rejoice  with  his  mother  and  the  girls 
in  their  little  home  at  Chelsea ;  Deronda  to  carry 
out  the  less  easy  task  of  opening  his  mind  to  Sir 
Hugo.  He  relied  a  little  on  the  Baronet's  general 
tolerance  of  eccentricities,  but  he  expected  more 
opposition  than  he  met  with.  He  was  received 
with  even  warmer  kindness  than  usual,  the  fail- 
ure was  passed  over  lightly,  and  when  he  detail- 
ed his  reasons  for  wishing  to  quit  the  university 
and  go  to  study  abroad,  Sir  Hugo  sat  for  some 
time  in  a  silence  which  was  rather  meditative 
than  surprised.  At  last  he  said,  looking  at  Daniel 
with  examination,  "  So  you  don't  want  to  be  an 
Englishman  to  the  backbone,  after  all  ?" 

"  I  want  to  be  an  Englishman,  but  I  want  to 
understand  other  points  of  view.  And  I  want  to 
get  rid  of  a  merely  English  attitude  in  studies." 

"I  see;  you  don't  want  to  be  turned  out  in 
the  same  mould  as  every  other  youngster.  And 
I  have  nothing  to  say  against  your  doffing  some 
of  our  national  prejudices.  I  feel  the  better  my- 
self  for  having  spent  a  good  deal  of  my  time 
abroad.  But,  for  God's  sake,  keep  an  English 
cut,  and  don't  become  indifferent  to  bad  tobacco ! 
And — my  dear  boy — it  is  good  to  be  unselfish  and 
generous ;  but  don't  carry  that  too  far.  It  will 
not  do  to  give  yourself  to  be  melted  down  for  the 
benefit  of  the  tallow  trade ;  you  must  know  where 
to  find  yourself.  However,  I  shall  put  no  veto 
on  your  going.  Wait  until  I  can  get  off  Commit- 
tee, and  I'll  run  over  with  you." 

So  Deronda  went  according  to  his  will.  But 
not  before  he  had  spent  some  hours  with  Hans 
Meyrick,  and  been  introduced  to  the  mother  and 
sisters  in  the  Chelsea  home.  The  shy  girls  watch- 
ed and  registered  every  look  of  their  brother's 
friend,  declared  by  Hans  to  have  been  the  sal- 
vation of  him,  a  fellow  like  nobody  else,  and,  in 
fine,  a  brick.  They  so  thoroughly  accepted  De- 
ronda as  an  ideal  that  when  he  was  gone  the 
youngest  set  to  work,  under  the  criticism  of  the 
two  elder  girls,  to  paint  him  as  Prince  Camaral- 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


"This  is  truth  the  poet  Binge, 
That  a  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow 
Is  remembering  happier  things." 

TENNYSON  :  Locksley  Hall, 

ON  a  fine  evening  near  the  end  of  July  Deron- 
da  was  rowing  himself  on  the  Thames.  It  was 
already  a  year  or  more  since  he  had  come  back 
to  England,  with  the  understanding  that  his  edu- 
cation was  finished,  and  that  he  was  somehow  to 
take  his  place  in  English  society;  but  though, 
in  deference  to  Sir  Hugo's  wish,  and  to  fence  off 
idleness,  he  had  begun  to  read  law,  this  apparent 
decision  had  been  without  other  result  than  to 
deepen  the  roots  of  indecision.  His  old  love  of 
boating  had  revived  with  the  more  force  now  that 
he  was  in  town  with  the  Mallingers,  because  he 
could  nowhere  else  get  the  same  still  seclusion 
which  the  river  gave  him.  He  had  a  boat  of  his 
own  at  Putney,  and  whenever  Sir  Hugo  did  not 
want  him,  it  was  his  chief  holiday  to  row  till  past 
sunset  and  come  in  again  with  the  stars.  Not 
that  he  was  in  a  sentimental  stage ;  but  he  was  in 
another  sort  of  contemplative  mood  perhaps  more 
common  in  the  young  men  of  our  day — that  of 
questioning  whether  it  were  worth  while  to  take 
part  in  the  battle  of  the  world :  I  mean,  of  course, 
the  young  men  in  whom  the  unproductive  labor 
of  questioning  is  sustained  by  three  or  five  per 
cent,  on  capital  which  somebody  else  has  battled 
for.  It  puzzled  Sir  Hugo  that  one  who  made  a 
splendid  contrast  with  all  that  was  sickly  and 
puling  should  be  hampered  with  ideas  which, 
since  they  left  an  accomplished  Whig  like  him- 
self unobstructed,  could  be  no  better  than  spec- 
tral illusions ;  especially  as  Deronda  set  himself 
against  authorship — a  vocation  which  is  under- 
stood to  turn  foolish  thinking  into  funds. 

Rowing  in  his  dark  blue  shirt  and  skull-cap, 
his  curls  closely  clipped,  his  mouth  beset  with 
abundant  soft  waves  of  beard,  he  bore  only  dis- 
guised traces  of  the  seraphic  boy  "  trailing  clouds 
of  glory."  Still,  even  one  who  had  never  seen 
him  since  his  boyhood  might  have  looked  at  him 
with  slow  recognition,  due  perhaps  to  the  pecul- 
iarity of  the  gaze  which  Gwendolen  chose  to 
call  "  dreadful,"  though  it  had  really  a  very  mild 
sort  of  scrutiny.  The  voice,  sometimes  audible  in 
subdued  snatches  of  song,  had  turned  out  merely 
a  high  barytone ;  indeed,  only  to  look  at  his  lithe 
powerful  frame  and  the  firm  gravity  of  his  face 
would  have  been  enough  for  an  experienced  guess 
that  he  had  no  rare  and  ravishing  tenor  such  as 
nature  reluctantly  makes  at  some  sacrifice.  Look 
at  his  hands :  they  are  not  small  and  dimpled, 
with  tapering  fingers  that  seem  to  have  only  a 
deprecating  touch :  they  are  long,  flexible,  firmly 
grasping  hands,  such  as  Titian  has  painted  in  a 
picture  where  he  wanted  to  show  the  combination 
of  refinement  with  force.  And  there  is  something 
of  a  likeness,  too,  between  the  faces  belonging  to 
the  hands — in  both  the  uniform  pale  brown  skin, 
the  perpendicular  brow,  the  calmly  penetrating 
eyes.  Not  seraphic  any  longer :  thoroughly  ter- 
restrial and  manly ;  but  still  of  a  kind  to  raise 
belief  in  a  human  dignity  which  can  afford  to 
acknowledge  poor  relations. 

Such  types  meet  us  here  and  there  among 
average  conditions^  in  a  workman,  for  example, 
whistling  over  a  bit  of  measurement  and  lifting 
his  eyes  to  answer  our  question  about  the  road. 
And  often  the  grand  meanings  of  faces  as  well  as 


of  written  words  may  lie  chiefly  in  the  impressions 
of  those  who  look  on  them.  But  it  is  precisely 
such  impressions  that  happen  just  now  to  be  of 
importance  in  relation  to  Deronda,  rowing  on  the 
Thames  in  a  very  ordinary  equipment  for  a  young 
Englishman  at  leisure,  and  passing  under  Kew 
Bridge  with  no  thought  of  an  adventure  in  which 
his  appearance  was  likely  to  play  any  part.  In 
fact,  he  objected  very  strongly  to  the  notion,  which 
others  had  not  allowed  him  to  escape,  that  his 
appearance  was  of  a  kind  to  draw  attention ;  and 
hints  of  this,  intended  to  be  complimentary,  found 
an  angry  resonance  in  him,  coming  from  mingled 
experiences,  to  which  a  clew  has  already  been 
given.  His  own  face  in  the  glass  had  during 
many  years  been  associated  for  him  with  thoughts 
of  some  one  whom  he  must  be  like — one  about 
whose  character  and  lot  he  continually  wondered, 
and  never  dared  to  ask. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  Kew  Bridge,  between 
six  and  seven  o'clock,  the  river  was  no  solitude. 
Several  persons  were  sauntering  on  the  towing- 
path,  and  here  and  there  a  boat  was  plying.  De- 
ronda had  been  rowing  fast  to  get  over  this  spot, 
when,  becoming  aware  of  a  great  barge  advancing 
toward  him,  he  guided  his  boat  aside,  and  rested 
on  his  oar  within  a  couple  of  yards  of  the  river- 
brink.  He  was  all  the  while  unconsciously  con- 
tinuing the  low-toned  chant  which  had  haunted 
his  throat  all  the  way  up  the  river — the  gondo- 
lier's song  in  the  Otello,  where  Rossini  has  worthily 
set  to  music  the  immortal  words  of  Dante, 
"Nessun  tnaggior  dolore 

Che  ricordarsi  del  tempo  fclice 

Nellamiseria;"* 

and,  as  he  rested  on  his  oar,  the  pianissimo  fall  of 
the  melodic  wail  "nella  miseria"  was  distinctly 
audible  on  the  brink  of  the  water.  Three  or  four 
persons  had  paused  at  various  spots  to  watch  the 
barge  passing  the  bridge,  and  doubtless  included 
in  their  notice  the  young  gentleman  in  the  boat ; 
but  probably  it  was  only  to  one  ear  that  the  low 
vocal  sounds  came  with  more  significance  than  if 
they  had  been  an  insect  murmur  amidst  the  sum 
of  current  noises.  Deronda,  awaiting  the  barge, 
now  turned  his  head  to  the  river-side,  and  saw  at 
a  few  yards'  distance  from  him  a  figure  which 
might  have  been  an  impersonation  of  the  misery 
he  was  unconsciously  giving  voice  to :  a  girl 
hardly  more  than  eighteen,  of  low  slim  figure, 
with  most  delicate  little  face,  her  dark  curls 
pushed  behind  her  ears  under  a  large  black  hat, 
a  long  woolen  cloak  over  her  shoulders.  Her 
hands  were  hanging  down  clasped  before  her,  and 
her  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  river  with  a  look  of 
immovable,  statue-like  despair.  This  strong  ar- 
rest of  his  attention  made  him  cease  singing : 
apparently  his  voice  had  entered  her  inner  world 
without  her  having  taken  any  note  of  whence  it 
came,  for  when  it  suddenly  ceased,  she  changed 
her  attitude  slightly,  and,  looking  round  with  a 
frightened  glance,  met  Deronda's  face.  It  was 
but  a  couple  of  moments,  but  that  seems  a  long 
while  for  two  people  to  look  straight  at  each 
other.  Her  look  was  something  like  that  of  a 
fawn  or  other  gentle  animal  before  it  turns  to 
run  away :  no  blush,  no  special  alarm,  but  only 
some  timidity  which  yet  could  not  hinder  her 
from  a  long  look  before  she  turned.  In  fact,  it 


•  Dante's  words  are  best  rendered  by  our  own  poet 
iu  the  lines  at  the  head  of  the  chapter. 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


seemed  to  Deronda  that  she  was  only  half  con- 
scious of  her  surroundings :  was  she  hungry,  or 
was  there  some  other  cause  of  bewilderment? 
He  felt  an  outleap  of  interest  and  compassion 
toward  her ;  but  the  next  instant  she  had  turned 
and  walked  away  to  a  neighboring  bench  under 
a  tree.  He  had  no  right  to  linger  and  watch  her : 
poorly  dressed,  melancholy  women  are  common 
sights ;  it  was  only  the  delicate  beauty,  the  pic- 
turesque lines  and  color  of  the  image,  that  were 
exceptional,  and  these  conditions  made  it  the 
more  markedly  impossible  that  he  should  obtrude 
his  interest  upon  her.  He  began  to  row  away, 
and  was  scon  far  up  the  river;  but  no  other 
thoughts  were  busy  enough  quite  to  expel  that 
pale  image  of  unhappy  girlhood.  He  fell  again 
and  again  to  speculating  on  the  probable  romance 
that  lay  behind  that  loneliness  and  look  of  deso- 
lation ;  then  to  smile  at  his  own  share  in  the 
prejudice  that  interesting  faces  must  have  inter- 
esting adventures;  then  to  justify  himself  for 
feeling  that  sorrow  was  the  more  tragic  when  it 
befell  delicate,  child-like  beauty. 

"  I  should  not  have  forgotten  the  look  of  mis- 
ery if  she  had  been  ugly  and  vulgar,"  he  said  to 
himself.  But  there  was  no  denying  that  the  at- 
tractiveness of  the  image  made  it  likelier  to  last. 
It  was  clear  to  him  as  an  onyx  cameo :  the 
brown-black  drapery,  the  white  face  with  small, 
small  features  and  dark,  long-lashed  eyes.  His 
mind  glanced  over  the  girl -tragedies  that  are 
going  on  in  the  world,  hidden,  unheeded,  as  if 
they  were  but  tragedies  of  the  copse  or  hedge- 
row, where  the  helpless  drag  wounded  wings  for- 
sakenly,  and  streak  the  shadowed  moss  with  the 
red  moment-hand  of  their  own  death.  Deronda 
of  late,  in  his  solitary  excursions,  had  been  occu- 
pied chiefly  with  uncertainties  about  his  own 
course ;  but  those  uncertainties,  being  much  at 
their  leisure,  were  wont  to  have  such  wide-sweep- 
ing connections  with  all  life  and  history  that  the 
new  image  of  helpless  sorrow  easily  blent  itself 
with  what  seemed  to  him  the  strong  array  of  rea- 
sons why  he  should  shrink  from  getting  into  that 
routine  of  the  world  which  makes  men  apologize 
for  all  its  wrong-doing,  and  take  opinions  as  mere 
professional  equipment — why  he  should  not  draw 
strongly  at  any  thread  in  the  hopelessly  entangled 
scheme  of  things. 

He  used  his  oars  little,  satisfied  to  go  with  the 
tide  and  be  taken  back  by  it.  It  was  his  habit  to 
indulge  himself  in  that  solemn  passivity  which 
easily  comes  with  the  lengthening  shadows  and 
mellowing  light,  when  thinking  and  desiring  melt 
together  imperceptibly,  and  what  in  other  hours 
may  have  seemed  argument  takes  the  quality  of 
passionate  vision.  By  the  time  he  had  come  back 
again  with  the  tide  past  Richmond  Bridge  the  sun 
was  near  setting ;  and  the  approach  of  his  favor- 
ite hour — with  its  deepening  stillness,  and  dark- 
ening masses  of  tree  and  building  between  the 
double  glow  of  the  sky  and  the  river — disposed 
him  to  linger  as  if  they  had  been  an  unfinished 
strain  of  music.  He  looked  out  for  a  perfectly 
solitary  spot  where  he  could  lodge  his  boat  against 
the  bank,  and,  throwing  himself  on  his  back  with 
his  head  propped  on  the  cushions,  could  watch  out 
the  light  of  sunset  and  the  opening  of  that  bead- 
roll  which  some  Oriental  poet  describes  as  God's 
call  to  the  little  stars,  who  each  answer,  "  Here 
am  I."  He  chose  a  spot  in  the  bend  of  the  river 
just  opposite  Kew  Gardens,  where  he  had  a  great 
E 


breadth  of  water  before  him  reflecting  the  glory  of 
the  sky,  while  he  himself  was  in  shadow.  He  lay 
with  his  hands  behind  his  head  propped  on  a  lev- 
el with  the  boat's  edge,  so  that  he  could  see  all 
around  him,  but  could  not  be  seen  by  any  one  at  a 
few  yards'  distance ;  and  for  a  long  while  he  nev- 
er turned  his  eyes  from  the  view  right  in  front  of 
him.  He  was  forgetting  every  thing  else  in  a 
half -speculative,  half-involuntary  identification  of 
himself  with  the  objects  he  was  looking  at,  think- 
ing how  far  it  might  be  possible  habitually  to 
shift  his  centre  till  his  own  personality  would  be 
no  less  outside  him  than  the  landscape — when  the 
sense  of  something  moving  on  the  bank  opposite 
him,  where  it  was  bordered  by  a  line  of  willow 
bushes,  made  him  turn  his  glance  thitherward. 
In  the  first  moment  he  had  a  darting  presenti- 
ment about  the  moving  figure ;  and  now  he  could 
see  the  small  face  with  the  strange  dying  sun- 
light upon  it.'  He  feared  to  frighten  her  by  a  sud- 
den movement,  and  watched  her  with  motionless 
attention.  She  looked  round,  but  seemed  only  to 
gather  security  from  the  apparent  solitude,  hid 
her  hat  among  the  willows,  and  immediately  took 
off  her  woolen  cloak.  Presently  she  seated  her- 
self and  deliberately  dipped  the  cloak  in  the  wa- 
ter, holding  it  there  a  little  while,  then  taking  it 
out  with  effort,  rising  from  her  seat  as  she  did  so. 
By  this  time  Deronda  felt  sure  that  she  meant  to 
wrap  the  wet  cloak  round  her  as  a  drowning 
shroud;  there  was  no  longer  time  to  hesitate 
about  frightening  her.  He  rose  and  seized  his 
oar  to  ply  across ;  happily  her  position  lay  a  lit- 
tle below  him.  The  poor  thing,  overcome  with 
terror  at  this  sign  of  discovery  from  the  opposite 
bank,  sank  down  on  the  brink  again,  holding  her 
cloak  but  half  out  of  the  water.  She  crouched 
and  covered  her  face  as  if  she  kept  a  faint  hope 
that  she  had  not  been  seen,  and  that  the  boat- 
man was  accidentally  coming  toward  her.  But 
soon  he  was  within  brief  space  of  her,  steadying 
his  boat  against  the  bank,  and  speaking,  but  very 
gently, 

"Don't  be  afraid.  ..  .You  are  unhappy.... 
Pray  trust  me. . .  .Tell  me  what  I  can  do  to  help 
you." 

She  raised  her  head  and  looked  up  at  him. 
His  face  now  was  toward  the  light,  and  she  knew 
it  again.  But  she  did  not  speak  for  a  few  mo- 
ments, which  were  a  renewal  of  their  former  gaze 
at  each  other.  At  last  she  said,  in  a  low  sweet 
voice,  with  an  accent  so  distinct  that  it  suggested 
foreignness  and  yet  was  not  foreign,  "  I  saw  you 
before;". . .  .and  then  added,  dreamily,  after  a 
like  pause, "  nella  miseria." 

Deronda,  not  understanding  the  connection  of 
her  thought,  supposed  that  her  mind  was  weak- 
ened by  distress  and  hunger. 

"It  was  you,  singing*"  she  went  on,  hesita- 
tingly— "Nessun  maggior  dolore". . .  .The  mere 
words  themselves  uttered  in  her  sweet  under- 
tones seemed  to  give  the- melody  to  Deronda's 
ear. 

"  Ah,  yes,"  he  said,  understanding  now ;  "  I  am 
often  singing  them.  But  I  fear  you  will  injure 
yourself  staying  here.  Pray  let  me  carry  you  in 
my  boat  to  some  place  of  safety.  And  that  wet 
cloak — let  me  take  it." 

He  would  not  "attempt  to  take  it  without  her 
leave,  dreading  lest  he  should  scare  her.  Even 
at  his  words,  he  fancied  that  she  shrank  and 
clutched  the  cloak  more  tenaciously.  But  her 


66 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


eyes  were  fixed  on  him  with  a  question  in  them 
as  she  said,  "  You  look  good.  Perhaps  it  is  God's 
command." 

"Do  trust  me.  Let  me  help  you.  I  will  die 
before  I  will  let  any  harm  come  to  you." 

She  rose  from  her  sitting  posture,  first  drag- 
ging the  saturated  cloak  and  then  letting  it  fall 
on  the  ground — it  was  too  heavy  for  her  tired 
arms.  Her  little  woman's  figure  as  she  laid  her 
delicate  chilled  hands  together  one  over  the  other 
against  her  waist,  and  went  a  step  backward  while 
she  leaned  her  head  forward  as  if  not  to  lose  her 
sight  of  his  face,  was  unspeakably  touching. 

"  Great  God !"  the  words  escaped  Deronda  in  a 
tone  so  low  and  solemn  that  they  seemed  like  a 
prayer  become  unconsciously  vocal.  The  agitating 
impression  this  forsaken  girl  was  making  on  him 
stirred  a  fibre  that  lay  close  to  his  deepest  interest 
in  the  fates  of  women — "  Perhaps  my  mother  was 
like  this  one."  The  old  thought  had  come  now 
with  a  new  impetus  of  mingled  feeling,  and  urged 
that  exclamation  in  which  both  East  and  West 
have  for  ages  concentrated  their  awe  in  the  pres- 
ence of  inexorable  calamity. 

The  low-toned  words  seemed  to  have  some  re- 
assurance in  them  for  the  hearer:  she  stepped 
forward  close  to  the  boat's  side,  and  Deronda  put 
out  his  hand,  hoping  now  that  she  would  let  him 
help  her  in.  She  had  already  put  her  tiny  hand 
into  his,  which  closed  round  it,  when  some  new 
thought  struck  her,  and  drawing  back  she  said, 

"I  have  nowhere  to  go — nobody  belonging  to 
me  in  all  this  land." 

"I  will  take  you  to  a  lady  who  has  daughters," 
said  Deronda,  immediately.  He  felt  a  sort  of 
relief  in  gathering  that  the  wretched  home  and 
cruel  friends  he  imagined  her  to  be  fleeing  from 
were  not  in  the  near  background.  Still  she  hesi- 
tated, and  said,  more  timidly  than  ever, 

"  Do  you  belong  to  the  theatre  ?" 

"  No ;  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  theatre," 
said  Deronda,  in  a  decided  tone.  Then  beseech- 
ingly, "  I  will  put  you  in  perfect  safety  at  once ; 
with  a  lady,  a  good  woman ;  I  am  sure  she  will 
be  kind.  Let  us  lose  no  time:  you  will  make 
yourself  ill.  Life  may  still  become  sweet  to  you. 
There  are  good  people — there  are  good  women 
who  will  take  care  of  you." 

She  drew  backward  no  more,  but  stepped  in 
easily,  as  if  she  were  used  to  such  action,  and  sat 
down  on  the  cushions. 

"  You  had  a  covering  for  your  head,"  said  De- 
ronda. 

"My  hat?"  (she  lifted  up  her  hands  to  her 
head).  "  It  is  quite  hidden  in  the  bush." 

"I  will  find  it,"  said  Deronda,  putting  out  his 
hand  deprecatingly  as  she  attempted  to  rise.  "  The 
boat  is  fixed." 

He  jumped  out,  found  the  hat,  and  lifted  up 
the  saturated  cloak,  wringing  it,  and  throwing  it 
into  the  bottom  of  the  boat. 

"  We  must  carry  the  cloak  away,  to  prevent 
any  one  who  may  have  noticed  you  from  thinking 
you  have  been  drowned,"  he  said,  cheerfully,  as 
he  got  in  again  and  presented  the  old  hat  to  her. 
"  I  wish  I  had  any  other  garment  than  my  coat 
to  offer  you.  But  shall  you  mind  throwing  it 
over  your  shoulders  while  we  are  on  the  water  ? 
It  is  quite  an  ordinary  thing  to  do,  when  people 
return  late  and  are  not  enough  provided  with 
wraps."  He  held  out  the  coat  toward  her  with 
ft  smile,  and  there  came  a  faint  melancholy  smile 


hi  answer,  as  she  took  it  and  put  it  on  very  clev- 
erly. 

"  I  have  some  biscuits— should  you  like  them  ?" 
said  Deronda. 

"  No ;  I  can  not  eat.  I  had  still  some  money 
left  to  buy  bread." 

He  began  to  ply  his  oar  without  further  re- 
mark, and  they  went  along  swiftly  for  many  min- 
utes without  speaking.  She  did  not  look  at  him, 
but  was  watching  the  oar,  leaning  forward  in  an 
attitude  of  repose,  as  if  she  were  beginning  to 
feel  the  comfort  of  returning  warmth  and  the 
prospect  of  life  instead  of  death.  The  twilight 
was  deepening;  the  red  flush  was  all  gone,  and 
the  little  stars  were  giving  their  answer  one  after 
another.  The  moon  was  rising,  but  was  still  en- 
tangled among  trees  and  buildings.  The  light  was 
not  such  that  he  could  distinctly  discern  the  ex- 
pression of  her  features  or  her  glance,  but  they 
were  distinctly  before  him  nevertheless — features 
and  a  glance  which  seemed  to  have  given  a  fuller 
meaning  for  him  to  the  human  face.  Among  his 
anxieties  one  was  dominant :  his  first  impression 
about  her,  that  her  mind  might  be  disordered, 
had  not  been  quite  dissipated :  the  project  of  sui- 
cide was  unmistakable,  and  gave  a  deeper  color 
to  every  other  suspicious  sign.  He  longed  to  be- 
gin a  conversation,  but  abstained,  wishing  to  en- 
courage the  confidence  that  might  induce  her  to 
speak  first.  At  last  she  did  speak : 

"  I  like  to  listen  to  the  oar." 

"So  do  I." 

"  If  you  had  not  come,  I  should  have  been  dead 
now." 

"  I  can  not  bear  you  to  speak  of  that.  I  hope 
you  will  never  be  sorry  that  I  came." 

"  I  can  not  see  how  I  shall  be  glad  to  live.  The 
maggior  dolore  and  the  miseria  have  lasted  longer 
than  the  tempo  fclice."  She  paused,  and  then 
went  on  dreamily,  "Dolore — miseria — I  think 
those  words  are  alive." 

Deronda  was  mute :  to  question  her  seemed  an 
unwarrantable  freedom ;  he  shrank  from  appear- 
ing to  claim  the  authority  of  a  benefactor,  or  to 
treat  her  with  the  less  reverence  because  she  was 
in  distress.  She  went  on,  musingly, 

"  I  thought  it  was  not  wicked.  Death  and  life 
are  one  before  the  Eternal.  I  know  our  fathers 
slew  their  children  and  then  slew  themselves,  to 
keep  their  souls  pure.  I  meant  it  so.  But  now  I 
am  commanded  to  live.  I  can  not  see  how  I  shall 
live." 

"  You  will  find  friends.  I  will  find  them  for 
you." 

She  shook  her  head,  and  said,  mournfully, 
"Not  my  mother  and  brother.  I  can  not  find 
them." 

"  You  are  English  ?  You  must  be — speaking 
English  so  perfectly." 

She  did  not  answer  immediately,  but  looked  at 
Deronda  again,  straining  to  sec  him  in  the  doubt- 
ful light.  Until  now  she  had  been  watching  the 
oar.  It  seemed  as  if  she  were  half  roused,  and 
wondered  which  part  of  her  impressions  was 
dreaming  and  which  waking.  Sorrowful  isolation 
had  benumbed  her  sense  of  reality,  and  the  power 
of  distinguishing  outward  and  inward  was  contin- 
ually slipping  away  from  her.  Her  look  was  full 
of  wondering  timidity,  such  as  the  forsaken  one 
in  the  desert  might  have  lifted  to  the  angelic  vis- 
ion before  she  knew  whether  his  message  were  in 
anger  or  in  pity. 


BOOK  II.— MEETING  STREAMS. 


07 


"  You  want  to  know  if  I  am  English  ?"  she  said 
at  last,  while  Deronda  was  reddening  nervously 
under  a  gaze  which  he  felt  more  fully  than  he  saw. 

"  I  want  to  know  nothing  except  what  you  like 
to  tell  me,"  he  said,  still  uneasy  in  the  fear  that 
her  mind  was  wandering.  "Perhaps  it  is  not 
good  for  you  to  talk." 

"Yes,  I  will  tell  you.  I  am  English-born.  But 
I  am  a  Jewess." 

Deronda  was  silent,  inwardly  wondering  that 
he  had  not  said  this  to  himself  before,  though 
any  one  who  had  seen  delicate-faced  Spanish  girls 
might  simply  have  guessed  her  to  be  Spanish. 

"  Do  you  despise  me  for  it  ?"  she  said,  present- 
ly, in  low  tones,  which  had  a  sadness  that  pierced 
like  a  cry  from  a  small  dumb  creature  in  fear. 

"Why  should  I?"  said  Deronda.  "I  am  not 
so  foolish." 

"  I  know  many  Jews  are  bad." 

"So  are  many  Christians.  But  I  should  not 
think  it  fair  for  you  to  despise  me  because  of  that." 

"  My  mother  and  brother  were  good.  But  I 
shall  never  find  them.  I  am  come  a  long  way — 
from  abroad.  I  ran  away ;  but  I  can  not  tell  you 
— I  can  not  speak  of  it.  I  thought  I  might  find 
my  mother  again — God  would  guide  me.  But 
then  I  despaired.  This  morning  when  the  light 
came,  I  felt  as  if  one  word  kept  sounding  with- 
in me — Never!  never!  But  now — I  begin — to 
think" — her  words  were  broken  by  rising  sobs — 
"  I  am  commanded  to  live — perhaps  we  are  going 
to  her." 

With  an  outburst  of  weeping,  she  buried  her 
head  on  her  knees.  He  hoped  that  this  passion- 
ate weeping  might  relieve  her  excitement.  Mean- 
while he  was  inwardly  picturing  in  much  embar- 
rassment how  he  should  present  himself  with  her 
in  Park  Lane — the  course  which  he  had  at  first 
unreflectingly  determined  on.  No  one  kinder  and 
more  gentle  than  Lady  Mallinger;  but  it  was 
hardly  probable  that  she  would  be  at  home ;  and 
he  had  a  shuddering  sense  of  a  lackey  staring  at 
this  delicate,  sorrowful  image  of  womanhood — of 
glaring  lights  and  fine  staircases,  and  perhaps 
chilling  suspicious  manners  from  lady's-maid  and 
housekeeper,  that  might  scare  the  mind  already 
in  a  state  of  dangerous  susceptibility.  But  to 
take  her  to  any  other  shelter  than  a  home  already 
known  to  him  was  not  to  be  contemplated :  he 
was  full  of  fears  about  the  issue  of  the  adventure 
which  had  brought  on  him  a  responsibility  all  the 
heavier  for  the  strong  and  agitating  impression 
this  child-like  creature  had  made  on  him.  But 
another  resource  came  to  mind :  he  could  venture 
to  take  her  to  Mrs.  Meyrick's — to  the  small  home 
at  Chelsea,  where  he  had  been  often  enough  since 
his  return  from  abroad  to  feel  sure  that  he  could 
appeal  there  to  generous  hearts,  which  had  a  ro- 
mantic readiness  to  believe  in  innocent  need  and 
to  help  it.  Hans  Meyrick  was  safe  away  in  Italy, 
and  Deronda  felt  the  comfort  of  presenting  him- 
self with  his  charge  at  a  house  where  he  would 
be  met  by  a  motherly  figure  of  Quakerish  neat- 
ness, and  three  girls  who  hardly  knew  of  any  evil 
closer  to  them  than  what  lay  in  history  books 
and  dramas,  and  would  at  once  associate  a  lovely 
Jewess  with  Rebecca  in  IvanJioe,  besides  thinking 
that  every  thing  they  did  at  Deronda's  request 
would  be  done  for  their  idol,  Hans.  The  vision 
of  the  Chelsea  home  once  raised,  Deronda  no  lon- 
ger hesitated. 

The  rumbling  thither  in  the  cab  after  the  still- 


ness of  the  water  seemed  long.  Happily  hia 
charge  had  been  quiet  since  her  fit  of  weeping, 
and  submitted  like  a  tired  child.  When  they 
were  in  the  cab,  she  laid  down  her  hat  and  tried  to 
rest  her  head,  but  the  jolting  movement  would  not 
et  it  rest :  still  she  dozed,  and  her  sweet  head 
lung  helpless  first  on  one  side,  then  on  the  other. 

"They  are  too  good  to  have  any  fear  about 
aking  her  in,"  thought  Deronda.  Her  person, 
ier  voice,  her  exquisite  utterance,  were  one  strong 
appeal  to  belief  and  tenderness.  Yet  what  had 
been  the  history  which  had  brought  her  to  this 
desolation?  He  was  going  on  a  strange  errand 

•to  ask  shelter  for  this  waif.  Then  there  oc- 
curred to  him  the  beautiful  story  Plutarch  some- 
where tells  of  the  Delphic  women :  how  when  the 
Maenads,  outworn  with  their  torch-lit  wanderings, 
lay  down  to  sleep  in  the  market-place,  the  ma- 
trons came  and  stood  silently  round  them  to  keep 
;uard  over  their  slumbers ;  then,  when  they 
waked,  ministered  to  them  tenderly  and  saw  them 
safely  to  their  own  borders.  He  could  trust  the 
women  he  was  going  to  for  having  hearts  as  good. 

Deronda  felt  himself  growing  older  this  even- 

g,  and  entering  on  a  new  phase  in  finding  a  life 
to  which  his  own  had  come — perhaps  as  a  rescue ; 
but  how  to  make  sure  that  snatching  from  death 
was  rescue?  The  moment  of  finding  a  fellow- 
creature  is  often  as  full  of  mingled  doubt  and 
exultation  as  the  moment  of  finding  an  idea. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Life  is  a  various  mother:  now  she  dons 

Her  plumes  and  brilliants,  climbs  the  marble  stairs 

With  head  aloft,  nor  ever  turns  her  eyes 

On  lackeys  who  attend  her ;  now  she  dwells 

Grim-clad  up  darksome  alleys,  breathes  hot  gin, 

And  screams  in  pauper  riot 

But  to  these 

She  came  a  frugal  matron,  neat  and  deft, 
With  cheerful  morning  thoughts  and  quick  device 
To  find  the  much  in  little. 

MRS.  MEYRICK'S  house  was  not  noisy :  the  front 
parlor  looked  on  the  river,  and  the  back  on  gar- 
dens, so  that  though  she  was  reading  aloud  to  her 
daughters,  the  window  could  be  left  open  to  fresh- 
en the  air  of  the  small  double  room  where  a  lamp 
and  two  candles  were  burning.  The  candles  were 
on  a  table  apart  for  Kate,  who  was  drawing  il- 
lustrations for  a  publisher ;  the  lamp  was  not 
only  for  the  reader,  but  for  Amy  and  Mab,  who 
were  embroidering  satin  cushions  for  "the  great 
world." 

Outside,  the  house  looked  very  narrow  and 
shabby,  the  bright  light  through  the  holland  blind 
showing  the  heavy  old-fashioned  window-frame; 
but  it  is  pleasant  to  know  that  many  such  grim- 
walled  slices  of  space  in  our  foggy  London  have 
been  and  still  are  the  homes  of  a  culture  the 
more  spotlessly  free  from  vulgarity  because  pov- 
erty has  rendered  every  thing  like  display  an  im- 
personal question,  and  all  the  grand  shows  of  the 
world  simply  a  spectacle  which  rouses  no  petty 
rivalry  or  vain  effort  after  possession. 

The  Meyricks'  was  a  home  of  that  kind ;  and 
they  all  clung  to  this  particular  house  in  a  row 
because  its  interior  was  filled  with  objects,  always 
in  the  same  places,  which  for  the  mother  held 
memories  of  her  marriage  time,  and  for  the  young 
ones  seemed  as  necessary  and  uncriticised  a  part 
of  their  world  as  the  stars  of  the  Great  Bear  seen 


63 


DAXIEL  DEROXDA. 


from  the  back  windows.  Mrs.  Meyrick  had  borne 
much  stint  of  other  matters  that  she  might  be 
able  to  keep  some  engravings  specially  cherished 
by  her  husband ;  and  the  narrow  spaces  of  wall 
held  a  world-history  hi  scenes  and  heads  which 
the  children  had  early  learned  by  heart.  The 
chairs  and  tables  were  also  old  friends  preferred 
to  new.  But  in  these  two  little  parlors,  with  no 
furniture  that  a  broker  would  have  cared  to  cheap- 
en except  the  prints  and  piano,  there  was  space 
and  apparatus  for  a  wide-glancing,  nicely  select 
life,  open  to  the  highest  things  in  music,  painting, 
and  poetry.  I  am  not  sure  that  in  the  times  of 
greatest  scarcity,  before  Kate  could  get  paid  work, 
these  ladies  had  always  had  a  servant  to  light 
their  fires  and  sweep  their  rooms ;  yet  they  were 
fastidious  in  some  points,  and  could  not  believe 
that  the  manners  of  ladies  in  the  fashionable 
world  were  so  full  of  coarse  selfishness,  petty 
quarreling,  and  slang  as  they  are  represented  to 
be  ha  what  are  called  literary  photographs.  The 
Meyricks  had  their  little  oddities,  streaks  of  ec- 
centricity from  the  mother's  blood  as  well  as  the 
father's,  their  minds  being  like  mediaeval  houses 
with  unexpected  recesses  and  openings  from  this 
into  that,  flights  of  steps  and  sudden  outlooks. 

But  mother  and  daughters  were  all  united  by 
a  triple  bond — family  love;  admiration  for  the 
finest  work,  the  best  action ;  and  habitual  nidus- 
try.  Hans's  desire  to  spend  some  of  his  money 
in  making  their  lives  more  luxurious  had  been 
resisted  by  all  of  them,  and  both  they  and  he  had 
been  thus  saved  from  regrets  at  the  threatened 
triumph  of  his  yearning  for  art  over  the  attrac- 
tions of  secured  income — a  triumph  that  would 
by-and-by  oblige  him  to  give  up  his  fellowship. 
They  could  all  afford  to  laugh  at  his  Gavarni 
caricatures,  and  to  hold  him  blameless  in  follow- 
ing a  natural  bent  which  their  unselfishness  and 
independence  had  left  without  obstacle.  It  was 
enough  for  them  to  go  on  in  their  old  way,  only 
having  a  grand  treat  of  opera-going  (to  the  gal- 
lery) when  Hans  came  home  on  a  visit. 

Seeing  the  group  they  made  this  evening,  one 
could  hardly  wish  them  to  change  their  way  of 
life.  They  were  all  alike  small,  and  so  in  due 
proportion  with  their  miniature  rooms.  Mrs. 
Meyrick  was  reading  aloud  from  a  French  book : 
she  was  a  lively  little  woman,  half  French,  half 
Scotch,  with  a  pretty  articulateness  of  speech  that 
seemed  to  make  daylight  in  her  hearer's  under- 
standing. Though  she  was  not  yet  fifty,  her  rip- 
pling hair,  covered  by  a  Quakerish  net  cap,  was 
chiefly  gray,  but  her  eyebrows  were  brown  as  the 
bright  eyes  below  them ;  her  black  dress,  almost 
like  a  priest's  cassock  with  its  row  of  buttons, 
suited  a  neat  figure  hardly  five  feet  high.  The 
daughters  were  to  match  the  mother,  except  that 
Mab  had  Hans's  light  hair  and  complexion,  with 
a  bossy  irregular  brow  and  other  quaintnesses 
that  reminded  one  of  him.  Every  thing  about 
them  was  compact,  from  the  firm  coils  of  their 
hair,  fastened  back  d  la  Chinoise,  to  their  gray 
skirts  in  Puritan  non-conformity  with  the  fash- 
ion, which  at  that  time  would  have  demanded 
that  four  feminine  circumferences  should  fill  all 
the  free  space  in  the  front  parlor.  All  four,  if 
they  had  been  wax-work,  might  have  been  packed 
easily  in  a  fashipnable  lady's  traveling  trunk. 
Their  faces  seemed  full  of  speech,  as  if  their 
minds  had  been  shelled,  after  the  manner  of 
horse-chestnuts,  and  become  brightly  visible. 


The  only  large  thing  of  its  kind  in  the  room  was 
Hafiz,  the  Persian  cat,  comfortably  poised  on  the 
brown  leather  back  of  a  chair,  and  opening  his 
large  eyes  now  and  then  to  see  that  the  lower 
animals  were  not  in  any  mischief. 

The  book  Mrs.  Meyrick  had  before  her  was 
Erekmann-Chatrian's  Histoirc  d\m  Consent.  She 
had  just  finished  reading  it  aloud,  and  Mab,  who 
had  let  her  work  fall  on  the  ground  while  she 
stretched  her  head  forward  and  fixed  her  eyes  on 
the  reader,  exclaimed, 

"  I  think  that  is  the  finest  story  in  the  world." 

"  Of  course,  Mab !"  said  Amy ;  "  it  is  the  last 
you  have  heard.  Every  thing  that  pleases  you  is 
the  best  in  its  turn." 

"It  is  hardly  to  be  called  a  story,"  said  Kate. 
"It  is  a  bit  of  history  brought  near  us  with  a 
strong  telescope.  We  can  see  the  soldiers'  faces : 
no,  it  is  more  than  that — we  can  hear  every  thing 
— we  can  almost  hear  their  hearts  beat." 

"  I  don't  care  what  you  call  it,"  said  Mab,  flirt- 
ing away  her  thimble.  "  Call  it  a  chapter  in  Rev- 
elations. It  makes  me  want  to  do  something 
good,  something  grand.  It  makes  me  so  sorry 
for  every  body.  It  makes  me  like  Schiller — I 
want  to  take  the  world  in  my  arms  and  kiss  it. 
I  must  kiss  you  instead,  little  mother!"  She 
threw  her  arms  round  her  mother's  neck. 

"  Whenever  you  are  in  that  mood,  Mab,  down 
goes  your  work,"  said  Amy.  "  It  would  be  doing 
something  good  to  finish  your  cushion  without 
soiling  it." 

"  Oh— oh — oh  !"  groaned  Mab,  as  she  stooped 
to  pick  up  her  work  and  thimble.  "  I  wish  I  had 
three  grounded  conscripts  to  take  care  of." 

"  You  would  spill  their  beef  tea  while  you  were 
talking,"  said  Amy. 

"  Poor  Mab !  don't  be  hard  on  her,"  said  the 
mother.  "Give  me  the  embroidery  now,  child. 
You  go  on  with  your  enthusiasm,  and  I  will  go 
on  with  the  pink  and  white  poppy." 

"  Well,  ma,  I  think  you  Are  more  caustic  than 
Amy,"  said  Kate,  while  she  drew  her  head  back 
to  look  at  her  drawing. 

"  Oh — oh — oh !"  cried  Mab  again,  rising  and 
stretching  her  arms.  "  I  wish  something  wonder- 
ful would  happen.  I  feel  like  the  deluge.  The 
waters  of  the  great  deep  are  broken  up,  and  the 
windows  of  heaven  are  opened.  I  must  sit  down 
and  play  the  scales." 

Mab  was  opening  the  piano,  while  the  others 
were  laughing  at  this  climax,  when  a  cab  stopped 
before  the  house,  and  there  forthwith  came  a 
quick  rap  of  the  knocker. 

"  Dear  me !"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  starting  up,  "  it 
is  after  ten,  and  Phoebe  is  gone  to  bed."  She 
hastened  out,  leaving  the  parlor  door  open. 

"  Mr.  Deronda !"  The  girls  could  hear  this  ex- 
clamation from  their  mamma.  Mab  clasped  her 
hands,  saying  in  a  loud  whisper,  "  There  now ! 
something  M  going  to  happen ;"  Kate  and  Amy 
gave  up  their  work  in  amazement.  But  Deron- 
da's  tone  in  reply  was  so  low  that  they  could  not 
hear  his  words,  and  Mrs.  Meyrick  immediately 
closed  the  parlor  door. 

"  I  know  I  am  trusting  to  your  goodness  in  a 
most  extraordinary  way,"  Deronda  went  on,  after 
giving  his  brief  narrative ;  "  but  you  can  imagine 
how  helpless  I  feel  with  a  young  creature  like 
this  on  my  hands.  I  could  not  go  with  her  among 
strangers,  and  in  her  nervous  state  I  should  dread 
taking  her  into  a  house  full  of  servants.  I  have 


BOOK  II— MEETING  STREAMS. 


trusted  to  your  mercy.  I  hope  you  will  not  think 
my  act  unwarrantable." 

"  On  the  contrary.  You  have  honored  me  by 
trusting  me.  I  see  your  difficulty.  Pray  bring 
her  in.  I  will  go  and  prepare  the  girls." 

While  Deronda  went  back  to  the  cab,  Mrs. 
Mcyrick  turned  into  the  parlor  again  and  said: 
"  Here  is  somebody  to  take  care  of  instead  of  your 
wounded  conscripts,  Mab:  a  poor  girl  who  was 
going  to  drown  herself  in  despair.  Mr.  Deronda 
found  her  only  just  in  time  to  save  her.  He  brought 
her  along  in  his  boat,  and  did  not  know  what  else 
it  would  be  safe  to  do  with  her,  so  he  has  trusted 
us  and  brought  her  here.  It  seems  she  is  a  Jew- 
ess, but  quite  refined,  he  says — knowing  Italian 
and  music." 

The  three  girls,  wondering  and  expectant,  came 
forward  and  stood  near  each  other  in  mute  con- 
fidence that  they  were  all  feeling  alike  under  this 
appeal  to  their  compassion.  Mab  looked  rather 
awe-stricken,  as  if  this  answer  to  her  wish  were 
something  preternatural. 

Meanwhile  Deronda,  going  to  the  door  of  the 
cab,  where  the  pale  face  was  now  gazing  out  with 
roused  observation,  said,  "  I  have  brought  you  to 
some  of  the  kindest  people  in  the  world  :  there 
are  daughters  like  you.  It  is  a  happy  home. 
Will  you  let  me  take  you  to  them?" 

She  stepped  out  obediently,  putting  her  hand 
in  his  and  forgetting  her  hat ;  and  when  Deronda 
led  her  into  the  full  light  of  the  parlor  where  the 
four  little  women  stood  awaiting  her,  she  made  a 
picture  that  would  have  stirred  much  duller  sensi- 
bilities than  theirs.  At  first  she  was  a  little  dazed 
by  the  sudden  light,  and  before  she  had  concen- 
trated her  glance  he  had  put  her  hand  into  the 
mother's.  He  was  inwardly  rejoicing  that  the 
Meyricks  were  so  small:  the  dark-curled  head 
was  the  highest  among  them.  The  poor  wanderer 
could  not  be  afraid  of  these  gentle  faces  so  near 
hers ;  and  now  she  was  looking  at  each  of  them 
in  turn  while  the  mother  said,  "You  must  be 
weary,  poor  child." 

"We  will  take  care  of  you— we  will  comfort 
you — \ve  will  love  you,"  cried  Mab,  no  longer 
able  to  restrain  herself,  and  taking  the  small  right 
hand  caressingly  between  both  her  own.  This 
gentle  welcoming  warmth  was  penetrating  the 
bewildered  one:  she  hung  back  just  enough  to 
see  better  the  four  faces  in  front  of  her,  whose 
good-will  was  being  reflected  in  hers,  not  in  any 
smile,  but  in  that  undefinable  change  which  tells 
us  that  anxiety  is  passing  into  contentment.  For 
an  instant  she  looked  up  at  Deronda,  as  if  she 
were  referring  all  this  mercy  to  him,  and  then 
again  turning  to  Mrs.  Meyrick,  said,  with  more 
collectedness  in  her  sweet  tones  than  he  had 
heard  before : 


"  I  am  a  stranger.  I  am  a  Jewess.  You  might 
have  thought  I  was  wicked." 

"No,  we  are  sure  you  are  good,"  burst  out 
Mab. 

1  We  think  no  evil  of  you,  poor  child.  You 
shall  be  safe  with  us,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  Come 
now  and  sit  down.  You  must  have  some  food, 
and  then  go  to  rest." 

The  stranger  looked  up  again  at  Deronda,  who 
said, 

;You  will  have  no  more  fears  with  these 
friends  ?  You  will  rest  to-night  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  should  not  fear.  I  should  rest.  I  think 
these  are  the  ministering  angels." 

Mrs.  Meyrick  wanted  to  lead  her  to  a  seat,  but 
again  hanging  back  gently,  the  poor  weary  thing 
spoke  as  if  with  a  scruple  at  being  received  with- 
out a  further  account  of  herself : 

"  My  name  is  Mirah  Lapidoth.  I  am  come  a 
long  way,  all  the  way  from  Prague,  by  myself.  I 
made  my  escape.  I  ran  away  from  dreadful  things. 
I  came  to  find  my  mother  and  brother  in  London. 
I  had  been  taken  from  my  mother  when  I  was 
little,  but  I  thought  I  could  find  her  again.  I 
had  trouble — the-  houses  were  all  gone — I  could 
not  find  her.  It  has  been  a  long  while,  and  I  had 
not  much  money.  That  is  why  I  am  in  distress." 

"  Our  mother  will  be  good  to  you,"  cried  Mab. 
"  See  what  a  nice  little  mother  she  is !" 

"  Do  sit  down  now,"  said  Kate,  moving  a  chair 
forward,  while  Amy  ran  to  get  some  tea. 

Mirah  resisted  no  longer,  but  seated  herself  with 
perfect  grace,  crossing  her  little  feet,  laying  her 
hands  one  over  the  other  on  her  lap,  and  looking 
at  her  friends  with  placid  reverence ;  whereupon 
Hafiz,  who  had  been  watching  the  scene  restlessly, 
came  forward  with  tail  erect  and  rubbed  himself 
against  her  ankles.  Deronda  felt  it  time  to  take 
his  leave. 

"  Will  you  allow  me  to  come  again  and  inquire 
— perhaps  at  five  to-morrow  ?"  he  said  to  Mrs. 
Meyrick. 

"  Yes,  pray ;  we  shall  have  had  time  to  make 
acquaintance  then." 

"  Good-by,"  said  Deronda,  looking  down  at  Mi- 
rah, and  putting  out  his  hand.  She  rose  as  she 
took  it,  and  the  moment  brought  back  to  them 
both  strongly  the  other  moment  when  she  had 
first  taken  that  outstretched  hand.  She  lifted 
her  eyes  to  his  and  said,  with  reverential  fervor, 
"  The  God  of  our  fathers  bless  you  and  deliver 
you  from  all  evil  as  you  have  delivered  me.  I  did 
not  believe  there  was  any  man  so  good.  None 
before  have  thought  me  worthy  of  the  best.  You 
found  me  poor  and  miserable,  yet  you  have  given 
me  the  best." 

Deronda  could  not  speak,  but  with  silent  adieus 
to  the  Meyricks,  hurried  away. 


70 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


BOOK  III.— MAIDENS   CHOOSING. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

"  I  pity  the  man  who  can  travel  from  Dan  to  Beer- 
sheba,  and  say. '  "Pis  all  barren ;'  and  so  it  is ;  and  so 
Is  all  the  world  to  him  who  will  not  cultivate  the  fruits 
it  offers."— STEBNE  :  Sentimental  Journey. 

To  say  that  Deronda  was  romantic  would  be 
to  misrepresent  him;  but  under  his  calm  and 
somewhat  self-repressed  exterior  there  was  a  fer- 
vor which  made  him  easily  find  poetry  and  ro- 
mance among  the  events  of  every-day  life.  And 
perhaps  poetry  and  romance  are  as  plentiful  as 
ever  in  the  world,  except  for  those  phlegmatic 
natures  who  I  suspect  would  in  any  age  have  re- 
garded them  as  a  dull  form  of  erroneous  think- 
ing. They  exist  very  easily  hi  the  same  room 
with  the  microscope,  and  even  in  railway  car- 
riages: what  banishes  them  is  the  vacuum  in 
gentleman  and  lady  passengers.  How  should 
all  the  apparatus  of  heaven  and  earth,  from  the 
farthest  firmament  to  the  tender  bosom  of  the 
mother  who  nourished  us,  make  poetry  for  a 
mind  that  has  no  movements  of  awe  and  tender- 
ness, no  sense  of  fellowship  which  thrills  from 
the  near  to  the  distant,  and  back  again  from  the 
distant  to  the  near  ? 

To  Deronda  this  event  of  finding  Mirah  was  as 
heart-stirring  as  any  thing  that  befell  Orestes  or 
Rinaldo.  He  sat  up  half  the  night,  living  again 
through  the  moments  since  he  had  first  discerned 
Mirah  on  the  river-brink,  with  the  fresh  and  fresh 
vividness  which  belongs  to  emotive  memory. 
When  he  took  up  a  book  to  try  and  dull  this  ur- 
gency of  inward  vision,  the  printed  words  were 
no  more  than  a  net-work  through  which  he  saw 
and  heard  every  thing  as  clearly  as  before — saw 
not  only  the  actual  events  of  two  hours,  but  pos- 
sibilities of  what  had  been  and  what  might  be 
which  those  events  were  enough  to  feed  with  the 
warm  blood  of  passionate  hope  and  fear.  Some- 
thing in  his  own  experience  caused  Mirah's  search 
after  her  mother  to  lay  hold  with  peculiar  force 
on  his  imagination.  The  first  prompting  of  sym- 
pathy was  to  aid  her  in  the  search :  if  given  per- 
sons were  extant  in  London,  there  were  ways  of 
finding  them,  as  subtle  as  scientific  experiment, 
the  right  machinery  being  set  at  work.  But  here 
the  mixed  feelings  which  belonged  to  Deronda's 
kindred  experience  naturally  transfused  them- 
selves into  his  anxiety  on  behalf  of  Mirah. 

The  desire  to  know  his  own  mother,  or  to  know 
about  her,  was  constantly  haunted  with  dread ; 
and  in  imagining  what  might  befall  Mirah,  it 
quickly  occurred  to  him  that  finding  the  mother 
and  brother  from  whom  she  had  been  parted 
when  she  was  a  little  one  might  turn  out  to  be  a 
calamity.  When  she  was  in  the  boat  she  said 
Unit  her  mother  and  brother  were  good ;  but  the 
goodness  might  have  been  chiefly  in  her  own  ig- 
norant innocence  and  yearning  memory,  and  the 
ten  or  twelve  years  since  the  parting  had  been 
time  enough  for  much  worsening.  Spite  of  his 
strong  tendency  to  side  with  the  objects  of  prej- 
udice, and  in  general  with  those  who  got  the 
worst  of  it,  his'interest  had  never  been  practically 
drawn  toward  existing  Jews,  and  the  facts  he 
knew  about  them,  whether  they  walked  conspic- 
uous in  fine  apparel  or  lurked  in  by-streets,  were 
chiefly  of  the  sort  most  repugnant  to  him.  Of 


learned  and  accomplished  Jews  he  took  it  for 
granted  that  they  had  dropped  their  religion,  and 
wished  to  be  merged  in  the  people  of  their  native 
lands.  Scorn  flung  at  a  Jew  as  such  would  have 
roused  all  his  sympathy  in  griefs  of  inheritance ; 
but  the  indiscriminate  scorn  of  a  race  will  often 
strike  a  specimen  who  has  well  earned  it  on  his 
own  account,  and  might  fairly  be  gibbeted  as  a 
rascally  son  of  Adam.  It  appears  that  the  Car- 
ibs,  who  know  little  of  theology,  regard  thieving 
as  a  practice  peculiarly  connected  with  Christian 
tenets,  and  probably  they  could  allege  experiment- 
al grounds  for  this  opinion.  Deronda  could  not 
escape  (who  can  ?)  knowing  ugly  stories  of  Jewish 
characteristics  and  occupations ;  and  though  one 
of  his  favorite  protests  was  against  the  severance 
of  past  and  present  history,  he  was  like  others  who 
shared  his  protest,  in  never  having  cared  to  reach 
any  more  special  conclusions  about  actual  Jews 
than  that  they  retained  the  virtues  and  vices  of  a 
long-oppressed  race.  But  now  that  Mirah's  long- 
ing roused  his  mind  to  a  closer  survey  of  details, 
very  disagreeable  images  urged  themselves  of 
what  it  might  be  to  find  out  this  middle-aged 
Jewess  and  her  son.  To  be  sure,  there  was  the 
exquisite  refinement  and  charm  of  the  creature 
herself  to  make  a  presumption  in  favor  of  her 
immediate  kindred,  but — he  must  wait  to  know 
more :  perhaps  through  Mrs.  Meyrick  he  might 
gather  some  guiding  hints  from  Mirah's  own  lips. 
Her  voice,  her  accent,  her  looks,  all  the  sweet 
purity  that  clothed  her  as  with  a  consecrating 
garment,  made  him  shrink  the  more  from  giving 
her,  either  ideally  or  practically,  an  association 
with  what  was  hateful  or  contaminating.  But 
these  fine  words  with  which  we  fumigate  and  be- 
cloud unpleasant  facts  are  not  the  language  in 
which  we  think.  Deronda's  thinking  went  on  in 
rapid  images  of  what  might  be :  he  saw  himself 
guided  by  some  official  scout  into  a  dingy  street ; 
he  entered  through  a  dim  doorway,  and  saw  a 
hawk-eyed  woman,  rough-headed  and  unwashed, 
cheapening  a  hungry  girl's  last  bit  of  finery ;  or 
in  some  quarter  only  the  more  hideous  for  being 
smarter,  he  found  himself  under  the  breath  of  a 
young  Jew,  talkative  and  familiar,  willing  to  show 
his  acquaintance  with  gentlemen's  tastes,  and  not 
fastidious  in  any  transactions  with  which  they 
would  favor  him — and  so  on  through  the  brief 
chapter  of  his  experience  in  this  kind.  Excuse 
him :  his  mind  was  not  apt  to  run  spontaneously 
into  insulting  ideas,  or  to  practice  a  form  of  wit 
which  identifies  Moses  with  the  advertisement 
sheet ;  but  he  was  just  now  governed  by  dread, 
and  if  Mirah's  parents  had  been  Christian,  the 
chief  difference  would  have  been  that  his  fore- 
bodings would  have  been  fed  with  wider  knowl- 
edge. It  was  the  habit  of  his  mind  to  connect 
dread  with  unknown  parentage,  and  in  this  case 
as  well  as  his  own  there  was  enough  to  make  the 
connection  reasonable. 

But  what  was  to  be  done  with  Mirah  ?  She 
needed  shelter  and  protection  in  the  fullest  sense, 
and  all  his  chivalrous  sentiment  roused  itself  to 
insist  that  the  sooner  and  the  more  fully  he  could 
engage  for  her  the  interest  of  others  besides  him- 
self, the  better  he  should  fulfill  her  claims  on  him. 
He  had  no  right  to  provide  for  her  entirely, 


BOOK  IH.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


71 


though  lie  might  be  able  to  do  so ;  the  very  depth 
of  the  impression  she  had  produced  made  him 
desire  that  she  should  understand  herself  to  be 
entirely  independent  of  him ;  and  vague  visions  of 
the  future,  which  he  tried  to  dispel  as  fantastic, 
left  their  influence  in  an.  anxiety,  stronger  than 
any  motive  he  could  give  for  it,  that  those  who 
saw  his  actions  closely  should  b.e  acquainted  from 
the  first  with  the  history  of  his  relation  to  Mirah. 
He  had  learned  to  hate  secrecy  about  the  grand 
ties  and  obligations  of  his  life — to  hate  it  the 
more  because  a  strong  spell  of  interwoven  sensi- 
bilities hindered  him  from  breaking  such  secrecy. 
Deronda  had  made  a  vow  to  himself  that,  since 
the  truths  which  disgrace  mortals  are  not  all  of 
their  own  making,  the  truth  should  never  be 
made  a  disgrace  to  another  by  his  act.  He  was 
not  without  terror  lest  he  should  break  this  vow, 
and  fall  into  the  apologetic  philosophy  which  ex- 
plains the  world  into  containing  nothing  better 
than  one's  own  conduct. 

At  one  moment  he  resolved  to  tell  the  whole  of 
his  adventure  to  Sir  Hugo  and  Lady  Mallinger 
the  next  morning  at  breakfast,  but  the  possibility 
that  something  quite  new  might  reveal  itself  on 
his  next  visit  to  Mrs.  Meyrick's  checked  this  im- 
pulse, and  he  finally  went  to  sleep  on  the  con- 
clusion that  he  would  wait  until  that  visit  had 
been  made. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

"  It  will  hardly  be  denied  that  even  in  this  frail  and 
corrupted  world  we  sometimes  meet  persons  who,  in 
their  very  mien  and  aspect,  as  well  as  in  the  whole 
habit  of  life,  manifest  such  a  signature  and  stamp  of 
virtue  as  to  make  our  judgment  of  them  a  matter  of 
intuition  rather  than  the  result  of  continued  examina- 
tion."— ALEXANDER  KNOX  :  quoted  in  Southey's  Life 
of  Wesley. 

MIRAH  said  that  she  had  slept  well  that  night ; 
and  when  she  came  down  in  Mab's  black  dress, 
her  dark  hair  curling  in  fresh  fibrils  as  it  grad- 
ually dried  from  its  plenteous  bath,  she  looked 
like  one  who  was  beginning  to  take  comfort  after 
the  long  sorrow  and  watching  which  had  paled 
her  cheek  and  made  deep  blue  semicircles  under 
her  eyes.  It  was  Mab  who  carried  her  breakfast 
and  ushered  her  down — with  some  pride  in  the 
effect  produced  by  a  pair  of  tiny  felt  slippers 
which  she  had  rushed  out  to  buy  because  there 
were  no  shoes  in  the  house  small  enough  for 
Mirah,  whose  borrowed  dress  ceased  about  her 
ankles  and  displayed  the  cheap  clothing  that, 
moulding  itself  on  her  feet,  seemed  an  adornment 
as  choice  as  the  sheaths  of  buds.  The  farthing 
buckles  were  bijoux. 

"  Oh,  if  you  please,  mamma !"  cried  Mab,  clasp- 
ing her  hands  and  stooping  toward  Mirah's  feet, 
as  she  entered  the  parlor.  "  Look  at  the  slippers, 
how  beautifully  they  fit !  I  declare  she  is  like 
the  Queen  Budoor — '  two  delicate  feet,  the  work 
of  the  protecting  and  all-recompensing  Creator, 
support  her ;  and  I  wonder  how  they  can  sustain 
what  is  above  them.'  " 

Mirah  looked  down  at  her  own  feet  in  a  child- 
like way,  and  then  smiled  at  Mrs.  Meyrick,  who  i 
saying  inwardly,  "  One  could  hardly  imagine  this 
creature  having  an  evil  thought.  But  wise  people 
would  tell  me  to  be  cautious."  She  returned  Mi- 
rah's smile  and  said,  "  I  fear  the  feet  have  had  to 
sustain  their  burden  a  little  too  often  lately.  But 
to-day  she  will  rest  and  be  my  companion." 


"  And  she  will  tell  you  so  many  things  and  I 
shall  not  hear  them !"  grumbled  Mab,  who  felt 
herself  in  the  first  volume  of  a  delightful  romance, 
and  obliged  to  miss  some  chapters  because  she 
had  to  go  to  pupils. 

Kate  had  already  gone  to  make  sketches  along 
the  river,  and  Amy  was  away  on  business  errands. 
It  was  what  the  mother  wished,  to  be  alone  with 
this  stranger,  whose  story  must  be  a  sorrowful 
one,  yet  was  needful  to  be  told. 

The  small  front  parlor  was  as  good  as  a  temple 
that  morning.  The  sunlight  was  on  the  river,  and 
soft  air  came  in  through  the  open  window ;  the 
walls  showed  a  glorious  silent  cloud  of  witnesses 
— the  Virgin  soaring  amidst  her  cherubic  escort ; 
grand  Melancholia  with  her  solemn  universe ;  the 
Prophets  and  Sibyls ;  the  School  of  Athens ;  the 
Last  Supper;  mystic  groups  where  far-off  ages 
nade  one  moment ;  grave  Holbein  and  Rembrandt 
leads ;  the  Tragic  Muse ;  last-century  children  at 
;heir  musings  or  their  play ;  Italian  poets — all 
were  there  through  the  medium  of  a  little  black 
and  white.  The  neat  mother  who  had  weathered 
tier  troubles,  and  come  out  of  them  with  a  face 
still  cheerful,  was  sorting  colored  wools  for  her 
embroidery.  Hafiz  purred  on  the  window-ledge, 
the  clock  on  the  mantel-piece  ticked  without  hur- 
ry, and  the  occasional  sound  of  wheels  seemed  to 
lie  outside  the  more  massive  central  quiet.  Mrs. 
Meyrick  thought  that  this  quiet  might  be  the  best 
invitation  to  speech  on  the  part  of  her  companion, 
and  chose  not  to  disturb  it  by  remark.  Mirah 
sat  opposite  in  her  former  attitude,  her  hands 
clasped  on  her  lap,  her  ankles  crossed,  her  eyes 
at  first  traveling  slowly  over  the  objects  around 
her,  but  finally  resting  with  a  sort  of  placid  rev- 
erence on  Mrs.  Meyrick.  At  length  she  began  to 
speak  softly. 

'  I  remember  my  mother's  face  better  than  any 
thing;  yet  I  was  not  seven  when  I  was  taken 
away,  and  I  am  nineteen  now." 

"I  can  understand  that,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick. 

There  are  some  earliest  things  that  last  the 
longest." 

1  Oh  yes,  it  was  the  earliest.  I  think  my  life 
began  with  waking  up  and  loving  my  mother's 
face :  it  was  so  near  to  me,  and  her  arms  were 
round  me,  and  she  sang  to  me.  One  hymn  she 
sang  so  often !  so  often !  and  then  she  taught  me 
to  sing  it  with  her :  it  was  the  first  I  ever  sang. 
They  were  always  Hebrew  hymns  she  sang ;  and 
because  I  never  knew  the  meaning  of  the  words, 
they  seemed  full  of  nothing  but  our  love  and 
happiness.  When  I  lay  in  my  little  bed  and  it 
was  all  white  above  me,  she  used  to  bend  over 
me  between  me  and  the  white,  and  sing  in  a  sweet 
low  voice.  I  can  dream  myself  back  into  that 
tune  when  I  am  awake,  and  often  it  comes  back 
to  me  in  my  sleep — my  hand  is  very  little,  I  put 
it  up  to  her  face,  and  she  kisses  it.  Sometimes 
in  my  dream  I  begin  to  tremble  and  think  that 
we  are  both  dead ;  but  then  I  wake  up,  and  my 
hand  lies  like  this,  and  for  a  moment  I  hardly 
know  myself.  But  if  I  could  see  my  mother 
again,  I  should  know  her." 

"  You  must  expect  some  change  after  twelve 
years,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  gently.  "  See  my  gray 
hair :  ten  years  ago  it  was  bright  brown.  The  days 
and  the  months  pace  over  us  like  restless  little 
birds,  and  leave  the  marks  of  their  feet  backward 
and  forward ;  especially  when  they  are  like  birds 
with  heavy  hearts — then  they  tread  heavily." 


72 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"  Ah,  I  am  sure  her  heart  has  been  heavy  for 
want  of  me.  But  to  feel  her  joy  if  we  could  meet 
again,  and  I  could  make  her  know  how  I  love  her, 
and  give  her  deep  comfort  after  all  her  mourn- 
ing !  If  that  could  be,  I  should  mind  nothing ; 
I  should  be  glad  that  I  have  lived  through  my 
trouble.  I  did  despair.  The  world  seemed  miser- 
able and  wicked ;  none  helped  me  so  that  I  could 
bear  their  looks  and  words  ;  I  felt  that  my  moth- 
er was  dead,  and  death  was  the  only  way  to  her. 
But  then  in  the  last  moment — yesterday,  when 
I  longed  for  the  water  to  close  over  me — and  I 
thought  that  death  was  the  best  image  of  mercy 
— then  goodness  came  to  me  living,  and  I  felt 
trust  in  the  living.  And — it  is  strange — but  I 
began  to  hope  that  she  was  living  too.  And  now 
I  am  with  you — here — this  morning,  peace  and 
hope  have  come  into  me  like  a  flood.  I  want 
nothing ;  I  can  wait ;  because  I  hope  and  believe 
and  am  grateful — oh,  so  grateful !  You  have  not 
thought  evil  of  me — you  have  not  despised  me." 

Mirah  spoke  with  low-toned  fervor,  and  sat  as 
still  as  a  picture  all  the  while. 

"Many  others  would  have  felt  as  we  do,  my 
dear,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  fealing  a  mist  come  over 
her  eyes  as  she  looked  at  her  work. 

"  But  I  did  not  meet  them — they  did  not  come 
to  me." 

"How  was  it  that  you  were  taken  from  your 
mother?" 

"Ah,  I  am  a  long  while  coming  to  that.  It  is 
dreadful  to  speak  of,  yet  I  must  tell  you — I  must 
tell  you  every  thing.  My  father — it  was  he  who 
took  me  away.  I  thought  we  were  only  going  on 
a  little  journey,  and  I  was  pleased.  There  was  a 
box  with  all  my  little  things  in.  But  we  went  on 
board  a  ship,  and  got  farther  and  farther  away 
from  the  land.  Then  I  was  ill ;  and  I  thought  it 
would  never  end — it  was  the  first  misery,  and  it 
seemed  endless.  But  at  last  we  landed.  I  knew 
nothing  then,  and  believed  what  my  father  said. 
He  comforted  me,  and  told  me  I  should  go  back 
to  my  mother.  But  it  was  America  we  had  reach- 
ed, and  it  was  long  years  before  we  came  back 
to  Europe.  At  first  I  often  asked  my  father 
when  we  were  going  back ;  and  I  tried  to  learn 
writing  fast,  because  I  wanted  to  write  to  my 
mother;  but  one  day,  when  he  found  me  trying 
to  write  a  letter,  he  took  me  on  his  knee  and  told 
me  that  my  mother  and  brother  were  dead  ;  that 
was  why  we  did  not  go  back.  I  remember  my 
brother  a  little  ;  he  carried  me  once ;  but  he  was 
not  always  at  home.  I  believed  my  father  when 
he  said  that  they  were  dead.  I  saw  them  under 
the  earth  when  he  said  they  were  there,  with  their 
eyes  forever  closed.  I  never  thought  of  its  not 
being  true ;  and  I  used  to  cry  every  night  in  my 
bed  for  a  long  while.  Then  when  she  came  so 
often  to  me  in  my  sleep,  I  thought  she  must  be 
living  about  me  though  I  could  not  always  see 
her ;  and  that  comforted  me.  I  was  never  afraid 
in  the  dark  because  of  that;  and  very  often  in 
the  day  I  used  to  shut  my  eyes  and  bury  my  face 
and  try  to  see  her  and  to  hear  her  singing.  I 
came  to  do  that  at  last  without  shutting  my  eyes." 

Mirah  paused  with  a  sweet  content  in  her  face, 
as  if  she  were  having  a  happy  vision,  while  she 
looked  out  toward  the  river. 

"Still  your  father  was  not  unkind  to  you,  I 
hope,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  after  a  minute,  anxious 
to  recall  her. 

"No;  he  petted  me,  and  took  pains  to  teach 


me.  He  was  an  actor ;  and  I  found  out,  after, 
that  the  *  Coburg'  I  used  to  hear  of  his  going  to 
at  home  was  a  theatre.  But  he  had  more  to  do 
with  the  theatre  than  acting.  He  had  not  always 
been  an  actor ;  he  had  been  a  teacher,  and  knew 
many  languages.  His  acting  was  not  very  good, 
I  think ;  but  he  managed  the  stage,  and  wrote 
and  translated  plays.  An  Italian  lady,  a  singer, 
lived  with  us  a  long  time.  They  both  taught  me ; 
and  I  had  a  master  besides,  who  made  me  learn 
by  heart  and  recite.  I  worked  quite  hard,  though 
I  was  so  little ;  and  I  was  not  nine  when  I  first 
went  on  the  stage.  I  could  easily  learn  things, 
and  I  was  not  afraid.  But  then  and  ever  since 
I  hated  our  way  of  life.  My  father  had  money, 
and  we  had  finery  about  us  in  a  disorderly  way ; 
always  there  were  men  and  women  coming  and 
going,  there  was  loud  laughing  and  disputing, 
strutting,  snapping  of  fingers,  jeering,  faces  I  did 
not  like  to  look  at — though  many  petted  and  ca- 
ressed me.  But  then  I  remembered  my  moth- 
er. Even  at  first,  when  I  understood  nothing,  I 
shrank  away  from  all  those  things  outside  me 
into  companionship  with  thoughts  that  were  not 
like  them ;  and  I  gathered  thoughts  very  fast, 
because  I  read  many  things — plays  and  poetry, 
Shakspeare  and  Schiller,  and  learned  evil  and 
good.  My  father  began  to  believe  that  I  might 
be  a  great  singer :  my  voice  was  considered  won- 
derful for  a  child ;  and  he  had  the  best  teaching 
for  me.  But  it  was  painful  that  he  boasted  of  me, 
and  set  me  to  sing  for  show  at  any  minute,  as  if 
I  had  been  a  musical  box.  Once  when  I  was  ten 
years  old,  I  played  the  part  of  a  little  girl  who  had 
been  forsaken  and  did  not  know  it,  and  sat  singing 
to  herself  while  she  played  with  flowers.  I  did  it 
without  any  trouble ;  but  the  clapping  and  all  the 
sounds  of  the  theatre  were  hateful  to  me ;  and  I 
never  liked  the  praise  I  had,  because  it  seemed  all 
very  hard  and  unloving:  I  missed  the  love  and 
the  trust  I  had  been  born  into.  I  made  a  life  in 
my  own  thoughts  quite  different  from  every  thing 
about  me :  I  chose  what  seemed  to  me  beautiful 
out  of  the  plays  and  every  thing,  and  made  my 
world  out  of  it ;  and  it  was  like  a  sharp  knife 
always  grazing  me  that  we  had  two  sorts  of  life 
which  jarred  so  with  each  other — women  looking 
good  and  gentle  on  the  stage,  and  saying  good 
things  as  if  they  felt  them,  and  directly  after  I  saw 
them  with  coarse,  ugly  manners.  My  father  some- 
times noticed  my  shrinking  ways ;  and  Signora 
said  one  day  when  I  had  been  rehearsing, '  She 
will  never  be  an  artist :  she  has  no  notion  of  be- 
ing any  body  but  herself.  That  does  very  well 
now,  but  by-and-by  you  will  see — she  will  have 
no  more  face  and  action  than  a  singing-bird.' 
My  father  was  angry,  and  they  quarreled.  I  sat 
alone  and  cried,  because  what  she  had  said  was 
like  a  long  unhappy  future  unrolled  before  me. 
I  did  not  want  to  be  an  artist ;  but  this  was  what 
my  father  expected  of  me.  After  a  while  Signora 
left  us,  and  a  governess  used  to  come  and  give 
me  lessons  in  different  things,  because  my  father 
began  to  be  afraid  of  my  singing  too  much ;  but 
I  still  acted  from  time  to  time.  Rebellious  feel- 
ings grew  stronger  in  me,  and  I  wished  to  get 
away  from  this  life ;  but  I  could  not  tell  where  to 
go,  and  I  dreaded  the  world.  Besides,  I  felt  it 
would  be  wrong  to  leave  my  father:  I  dreaded 
doing  wrong,  for  I  thought  I  might  get  wicked 
and  hateful  to  myself,  in  the  same  way  that  many 
others  seemed  hateful  to  me.  For  so  long,  so 


BOOK  III.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


73 


long,  I  had  never  felt  my  outside  world  happy; 
and  if  I  got  wicked  I  should  lose  my  world  of 
happy  thoughts  where  my  mother  lived  with  me. 
That  was  my  childish  notion  all  through  those 
years.  Oh,  how  long  they  were !" 

Mirah  fell  to  musing  again. 

"Had  you  no  teaching  about  what  was  your 
duty?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  She  did  not  like  to 
say  "religion" — finding  herself  on  inspection 
rather  dim  as  to  what  the  Hebrew  religion  might 
have  turned  into  at  this  date. 

"  No— only  that  I  ought  to  do  what  my  father 
wished.  He  did  not  follow  our  religion  at  New 
York,  and  I  think  he  wanted  me  not  to  know 
much  about  it.  But  because  my  mother  used  to 
take  me  to  the  synagogue,  and  I  remembered 
sitting  on  her  knee  and  looking  through  the  rail- 
ing and  hearing  the  chanting  and  singing,  I 
longed  to  go.  One  day  when  I  was  quite  small 
I  slipped  out  and  tried  to  find  the  synagogue, 
but  I  lost  myself  a  long  while,  till  a  peddler 
questioned  me  and  took  me  home.  My  father, 
missing  me,  had  been  in  much  fear,  and  was 
very  angry.  I  too  had  been  so  frightened  at 
losing  myself  that  it  was  long  before  I  thought 
of  venturing  out  again.  But  after  Signora  left 
us  we  went  to  rooms  where  our  landlady  was  a 
Jewess  and  observed  her  religion.  I  asked  her 
to  take  me  with  her  to  the  synagogue;  and  I 
read  in  her  prayer-books  and  Bible,  and  when  I 
had  money  enough  I  asked  her  to  buy  me  books 
of  my  own,  for  these  books  seemed  a  closer  com- 
panionship with  my  mother :  I  knew  that  she 
must  have  looked  at  the  very  words  and  said 
them.  In  that  way  I  have  come  to,  know  a  little 
of  our  religion,  and  the  history  of  our  people,  be- 
sides piecing  together  what  I  read  iA  plays  and 
other  books  about  Jews  and  Jewesses ;  because  I 
was  sure  that  my  mother  obeyed  her  religion.  I 
had  left  off  asking  my  father  about  her.  It  is 
very  dreadful  to  say  it,  but  I  began  to  disbelieve 
him.  I  had  found  that  he  did  not  always  tell  the 
truth,  and  made  promises  without  meaning  to 
keep  them;  and  that  raised  my  suspicion  that 
my  mother  and  brother  were  still  alive  though 
he  had  told  me  that  they  were  dead.  For  in  go- 
ing over  the  past  again  and  again  as  I  got  older 
and  knew  more,  I  felt  sure  that  my  mother  had 
been  deceived,  and  had  expected  to  see  us  back 
again  after  a  very  little  while ;  and  my  father's 
taking  me  on  his  knee  and  telling  me  that  my 
mother  and  brother  were  both  dead  seemed  to 
me  now  nothing  but  a  bit  of  acting,  to  set  my 
mind  at  rest.  The  cruelty  of  that  falsehood  sank 
into  me,  and  I  hated  all  untruth  because  of  it.  I 
wrote  to  my  mother  secretly :  I  knew  the  street — 
Colman  Street— where  we  lived,  and  that  it  was 
near  Blackf riars  Bridge  and  the  Coburg,  and  that 
our  name  was  Cohen  then,  though  my  father 
called  us  Lapidoth,  because,  he  said,  it  was  a 
name  of  his  forefathers  in  Poland.  I  sent  my  let- 
ter secretly ;  but  no  answer  came,  and  I  thought 
there  was  no  hope  for  me.  Our  life  in  America 
did  not  last  much  longer.  My  father  suddenly 
told  me  we  were  to  pack  up  and  go  to  Hamburg, 
and  I  was  rather  glad.  I  hoped  we  might  get 
among  a  different  sort  of  people,  and  I  knew 
German  quite  well — some  German  plays  almost 
all  by  heart.  My  father  spoke  it  better  than  he 
spoke  English.  I  was  thirteen  then,  and  I  seem- 
ed to  myself  quite  old — I  knew  so  much,  and  yet 
so  little.  I  think  other  children  can  not  feel  as 


I  did.  I  had  often  wished  that  I  had  been 
drowned  when  I  was  going  away  from  my  moth- 
er. But  I  set  myself  to  obey  and  suffer :  what 
else  could  I  do  ?  One  day  when  we  were  on  our 
voyage,  a  new  thought  came  into  my  mind.  I 
was  not  very  ill  that  time,  and  I  kept  on  deck  a 
good  deal.  My  father  acted  and  sang  and  joked 
to  amuse  people  on  board,  and  I  used  often  to 
overhear  remarks  about  him.  One  day,  when  I 
was  looking  at  the  sea  and  nobody  took  notice  of 
me,  I  overheard  a  gentleman  say,  '  Oh,  he  is  one 
of  those  clever  Jews — a  rascal,  I  shouldn't  won- 
der. There's  no  race  like  them  for  cunning  in 
the  men  and  beauty  in  the  women.  I  wonder 
what  market  he  means  that  daughter  for.'  When 
I  heard  this,  it  darted  into  my  mind  that  the  un- 
happiness  in  my  life  came  from  my  being  a  Jew- 
ess, and  that  always,  to  the  end,  the  world  would 
think  slightly  of  me,  and  that  I  must  bear  it,  for 
I  should  be  judged  by  that  name ;  and  it  com- 
forted me  to  believe  that  my  suffering  was.  part 
of  the  affliction  of  my  people — my  part  in  the  long 
song  of  mourning  that  has  been  going  on  through 
ages  and  ages.  For  if  many  of  our  race  were 
wicked  and  made  merry  in  their  wickedness,  what 
was  that  but  part  of  the  affliction  borne  by  the  just 
among  them,  who  were  despised  for  the  sins  of 
their  brethren  ? — But  you  have  not  rejected  me." 

Mirah  had  changed  her  tone  in  this  last  sen- 
tence, having  suddenly  reflected  that  at  this  mo- 
ment she  had  reason  not  for  complaint  but  for 
gratitude. 

"  And  we  will  try  to  save  you  from  being  judged 
unjustly  by  others,  my  poor  child,"  said  Mrs. 
Meyrick,  who  had  now  given  up  all  attempt  at 
going  on  with  her  work,  and  sat  listening  with 
folded  hands  and  a  face  hardly  less  eager  than 
Mab's  would  have  been.  "  Go  on,  go  on  :  tell  me 
all." 

"  After  that  we  lived  in  different  towns — Ham- 
burg and  Vienna  the  longest.  I  began  to  study 
singing  again,  and  my  father  always  got  money 
about  the  theatres.  I  think  he  brought  a  good 
deal  of  money  from  America  :  I  never  knew  why 
we  left.  For  some  time  he  was  in  great  spirits 
about  my  singing,  and  he  made  me  rehearse  parts 
and  act  continually.  He  looked  forward  to  my 
coming  out  hi  the  opera.  But  by-and-by  it  seemed 
that  my  voice  would  never  be  strong  enough — it 
did  not  fulfill  its  promise.  My  master  at  Vienna 
said, '  Don't  strain  it  further :  it  will  never  do  for 
the  public :  it  is  gold,  but  a  thread  of  gold  dust.' 
My  father  was  bitterly  disappointed :  we  were  not 
so  well  off  at  that  time.  I  think  I  have  not  quite 
told  you  what  I  felt  about  my  father.  I  knew  he 
was  fond  of  me  and  meant  to  indulge  me,  and  that 
made  me  afraid  of  hurting  him ;  but  he  always 
mistook  what  would  please  me  and  give  me  happi- 
ness. It  was  his  nature  to  take  every  thing  lightly ; 
and  I  soon  left  off  asking  him  any  question  about 
things  that  I  cared  for  much,  because  he  always 
turned  them  off  with  a  joke.  He  would  even 
ridicule  our  own  people ;  and  once  when  he  had 
been  imitating  their  movements  and  their  tones  in 
praying,  only  to  make  others  laugh,  I  could  not 
restrain  myself — for  I  always  had  an  anger  in  my 
heart  about  my  mother — and  when  we  were  alone 
I  said, '  Father,  you  ought  not  to  mimic  our  own 
people  before  Christians  who  mock  them :  would 
it  not  be  bad  if  I  mimicked  you,  that  they  might 
mock  you  ?'  But  he  only  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  laughed  and  pinched  my  chin,  and  said, '  You 


74 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


couldn't  do  it,  my  dear.'  It  was  this  way  of  turn- 
ing off  every  thing,  that  made  a  great  wall  be- 
tween me  and  my  father,  and  whatever  I  felt 
most  I  took  the  most  care  to  hide  from  him.  For 
there  were  some  things — when  they  were  laughed 
at  I  could  not  bear  it:  the  world  seemed  like  a 
hell  to  me.  Is  this  world  and  all  the  life  upon  it 
only  like  a  farce  or  a  vaudeville,  where  you  find 
no  great  meanings  ?  Why,  then,  are  there  trag- 
edies and  grand  operas,  where  men  do  difficult 
things  and  choose  to  suffer  ?  I  think  it  is  silly  to 
speak  of  all  things  as  a  joke.  And  I  saw  that 
his  wishing  me  to  sing  the  greatest  music,  and 
parts  in  grand  operas,  was  only  wishing  for  what 
would  fetch  the  greatest  price.  That  hemmed  in 
my  gratitude  for  his  affectionateness,  and  the  ten- 
derest  feeling  I  had  toward  him  was  pity.  Yes, 
I  did  sometimes  pity  him.  He  had  aged  and 
changed.  Now  he  was  no  longer  so  lively.  I 
thought  he  seemed  worse — less  good  to  others 
and  to  me.  Every  now  and  then  in  the  latter 
years  his  gayety  went  away  suddenly,  and  he 
would  sit  at  home  silent  and  gloomy ;  or  he  would 
come  in  and  fling  himself  down  and  sob,  just  as 
I  have  done  myself  when  I  have  been  in  trouble. 
If  I  put  my  hand  on  his  knee  and  said, '  What  is 
the  matter,  father?'  he  would  make  no  answer, 
but  would  draw  my  arm  round  his  neck  and  put 
his  arm  round  me,  and  go  on  crying.  There  nev- 
er came  any  confidence  between  us ;  but,  oh !  I 
was  sorry  for  him.  At  those  moments  I  knew  he 
must  feel  his  life  bitter,  and  I  pressed  my  cheek 
against  his  head  and  prayed.  Those  moments 
were  what  most  bound  me  to  him ;  and  I  used  to 
think  how  much  my  mother  once  loved  him,  else 
she  would  not  have  married  him. 

"  But  soon  there  came  the  dreadful  tune.  We 
had  been  at  Pesth  and  we  came  back  to  Vienna. 
In  spite  of  what  my  master  Leo  had  said,  my 
father  got  me  an  engagement,  not  at  the  opera, 
but  to  take  singing  parts  at  a  suburb  theatre  in 
Vienna.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  theatre 
then;  I  did  not  understand  what  he  did,  but  I 
think  he  was  continually  at  a  gambling  house, 
though  he  was  careful  always  about  taking  me  to 
the  theatre.  I  was  very  miserable.  The  plays  I 
acted  in  were  detestable  to  me.  Men  came  about 
us  and  wanted  to  talk  to  me:  women  and  men 
seemed  to  look  at  me  with  a  sneering  smile :  it 
was  no  better  than  a  fiery  furnace.  Perhaps  I 
make  it  worse  than  it  was — you  don't  know  that 
life. ;  but  the  glare  and  the  faces,  and  my  having 
to  go  on  and  act  and  sing  what  I  hated,  and  then 
see  people  who  came  to  stare  at  me  behind  the 
scenes— it  was  all  so  much  worse  than  when  I 
was  a  little  girl.  I  went  through  with  it ;  I  did 
it;  I  had  set  my  mind  to  obey  my  father  and 
work,  for  I  saw  nothing  better  that  I  could  do. 
But  I  felt  that  my  voice  waa  getting  weaker,  and 
I  knew  that  my  acting  was  not  good  except  when 
it  was  not  really  acting,  but  the  part  was  one 
that  I  could  be  myself  in,  and  some  feeling  with- 
in me  carried  me  along.  That  was  seldom. 

"  Then,  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  the  news  came 
to  me  one  morning  that  my  father  had  been  taken 
to  prison,  and  he  had  sent  for  me.  He  did  not  tell 
me  the  reason  why  he  was  there,  but  he  ordered 
me  to  go  to  an  address  he  gave  me,  to  see  a  Count 
who  would  be  able  to  get  him  released.  The  ad- 
dress was  to  some  public  rooms,  where  I  was  to 
ask  for  the  Count,  and  beg  him  to  come  to  my 
father.  I  found  him^and  recognized  him  as  a 


gentleman  whom  I  had  seen  the  other  night  for 
the  first  time  behind  the  scenes.  That  agitated 
me,  for  I  remembered  his  way  of  looking  at  me 
and  kissing  my  hand — I  thought  it  was  in  mock- 
ery. But  I  delivered  my  errand,  and  he  promised 
to  go  immediately  to  my  father,  who  came  home 
again  that  very  evening,  bringing  the  Count  with 
him.  I  now  began  to  feel  a  horrible  dread  of  this 
man,  for  he  worried  me  with  his  attentions ;  his 
eyes  were  always  on  me :  I  felt  sure  that  what- 
ever else  there  might  be  in  his  mind  toward  me, 
below  it  all  there  was  scorn  for  the  Jewess  and 
the  actress.  And  when  he  came  to  me  the  next 
day  in  the  theatre  and  would  put  my  shawl  round 
me,  a  terror  took  hold  of  me ;  I  saw  that  my  fa- 
ther wanted  me  to  look  pleased.  The  Count  was 
neither  very  young  nor  very  old :  his  hair  and 
eyes  were  pale ;  he  was  tall  and  walked  heavily ; 
and  his  face  was  heavy  and  grave  except  when 
he  looked  at  me.  He  smiled  at  me,  and  his  smile 
went  through  me  with  horror:  I  could  not  tell 
why  he  was  so  much  worse  to  me  than  other  men. 
Some  feelings  are  like  our  hearing :  they  come  as 
sounds  do,  before  we  know  their  reason.  My  fa- 
ther talked  to  me  about  him  when  we  were  alone, 
and  praised  him — said  what  a  good  friend  he  had 
been.  I  said  nothing,  because  I  supposed  he  had 
got  my  father  out  of  prison.  When  the  Count 
came  again,  my  father  left  the  room.  He  asked 
me  if  I  liked  being  on  the  stage.  I  said  No,  I 
only  acted  in  obedience  to  my  father.  He  always 
spoke  French,  and  called  me  petit  ange  and  such 
things,  which  I  felt  insulting.  I  knew  he  meant 
to  make  love  to  me,  and  I  had  it  firmly  in  my 
mind  that  a  nobleman,  and  one  who  was  not  a  Jew, 
could  have  no  love  for  me  that  was  not  half  con- 
tempt. But  then  he  told  me  that  I  need  not  act 
any  longer;  he  wished  me  to  visit  him  at  his 
beautiful  place,  where  I  might  be  queen  of  every 
thing.  It  was  difficult  to  me  to  speak,  I  felt  so 
shaken  with  anger :  I  could  only  say,  '  I  would 
rather  stay  on  the  stage  forever,'  and  I  left  him 
there.  Hurrying  out  of  the  room,  I  saw  my  father 
sauntering  in  the  passage.  My  heart  was  crushed. 
I  went  past  him  and  locked  myself  up.  It  had 
sunk  into  me  that  my  father  was  in  a  conspiracy 
with  that  man  against  me.  But  the  next  day  he 
persuaded  me  to  come  out:  he  said  that  I  had 
mistaken  every  thing,  and  he  would  explain :  if  I 
did  not  come;  out  and  act  and  fulfill  my  engage- 
ment, we  should  be  ruined  and  he  must  starve. 
So  I  went  on  acting,  and  for  a  week  or  more  the 
Count  never  came  near  me.  My  father  changed 
our  lodgings,  and  kept  at  home  except  when  he 
went  to  the  theatre  with  me.  He  began  one  day 
to  speak  discouragingly  of  my  acting,  and  say  I 
could  never  go  on  singing  in  public — I  should 
lose  my  voice — I  ought  to  think  of  my  future,  and 
not  put  my  nonsensical  feelings  between  me  and 
my  fortune.  He  said, '  What  will  you  do  ?  You 
will  be  brought  down  to  sing  and  beg  at  people's 
doors.  You  have  had  a  splendid  offer,  and  ought 
to  accept  it.'  I  could  not  speak :  a  horror  took 
possession  of  me  when  I  thought  of  my  mother 
and  of  him.  I  felt  for  the  first  time  that  I  should 
not  do  wrong  to  leave  him.  But  the  next  day  he 
told  me  that  he  had  put  an  end  to  my  engagement 
at  the  theatre,  and  that  we  were  to  go  to  Prague. 
I  was  getting  suspicious  of  every  thing,  and  my 
will  was  hardening  to  act  against  him.  It  took  us 
two  days  to  pack  and  get  ready ;  and  I  had  it  in 
my  mind  that  I  might  be  obliged  to  run  away 


BOOK  III.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


from  my  father,  and  then  I  would  come  to  Lon- 
don and"  try  if  it  were  possible  to  find  my  mother. 
I  had  a  little  money,  and  I  sold  some  things  to 
get  more.  I  packed  a  few  clothes  in  a  little 
bag  that  I  could  carry  with  me,  and  I  kept  my 
mind  on  the  watch.  My  father's  silence — his  let- 
ting drop  that  subject  of  the  Count's  offer — made 
me  feel  sure  that  there  was  a  plan  against  me. 
I  felt  as  if  it  had  been  a  plan  to  take  me  to  a 
mad-house.  I  once  saw  a  picture  of  a  mad-house, 
that  I  could  never  forget ;  it  seemed  to  me  very 
much  like  some  of  the  life  I  had  seen — the  peo- 
ple strutting,  quarreling,  leering — the  faces  with 
cunning  and  malice  in  them.  It  was  my  will  to 
keep  myself  from  wickedness,  and  I  prayed  for 
help.  I  had  seen  what  despised  women  were: 
and  my  heart  turned  against  my  father,  for  I  saw 
always  behind  him  that  man  who  made  me  shud- 
der. You  will  think  I  had  not  enough  reason  for 
my  suspicions,  and  perhaps  I  had  not,  outside  my 
own  feeling ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  my  mind 
had  been  lit  up,  and  all  that  might  be  stood  out 
clear  and  sharp.  If  I  slept,  it  was  only  to  see 
the  same  sort  of  things,  and  I  could  hardly  sleep 
at  all.  Through  our  journey  I  was  every  where 
on  the  watch.  I  don't  know  why,  but  it  came 
before  me  like  a  real  event,  that  my  father  would 
suddenly  leave  me  and  I  should  find  myself  with 
the  Count  where  I  could  not  get  away  from  him. 
I  thought  God  was  warning  me:  my  mother's 
voice  was  in  my  soul.  It  was  dark  when  we 
reached  Prague,  and  though  the  strange  bunches 
of  lamps  were  lit,  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish 
faces  as  we  drove  along  the  street.  My  father 
chose  to  sit  outside — he  was  always  smoking  now 
— and  I  watched  every  thing  in  spite  of  the  dark- 
ness. I  do  believe  I  could  see  better  then  than 
ever  I  did  before:  the  strange  clearness  within 
seemed  to  have  got  outside  me.  It  was  not  my 
habit  to  notice  faces  and  figures  much  in  the 
street ;  but  this  night  I  saw  every  one ;  and  when 
we  passed  before  a  great  hotel,  I  caught  sight 
only  of  a  back  that  was  passing  in — the  light  of 
the  great  bunch  of  lamps  a  good  way  off  fell  on 
it.  I  knew  it — before  the  face  was  turned,  as  it 
fell  into  shadow,  I  knew  who  it  was.  Help  came 
to  me.  I  feel  sure  help  came  to  me.  I  did  not 
sleep  that  night.  I  put  on  my  plainest  things — 
the  cloak  and  hat  I  have  worn  ever  since ;  and  I 
sat  watching  for  the  light  and  the  sound  of  the 
doors  being  unbarred.  Some  one  rose  early — at 
four  o'clock — to  go  to  the  railway.  That  gave 
me  courage.  I  slipped  out  with  my  little  bag 
under  my  cloak,  and  none  noticed  me.  I  had 
been  a  long  while  attending  to  the  railway  guide, 
that  I  might  learn  the  way  to  England ;  and  be- 
fore the  sun  had  risen  I  was  in  the  train  for  Dres- 
den. Then  I  cried  for  joy.  I  did  not  know  wheth- 
er my  money  would  last  out,  but  I  trusted.  I  could 
sell  the  things  in  my  bag,  and  the  little  rings  in 
my  ears,  and  I  could  live  on  bread  only.  My 
only  terror  was  lest  my  father  should  follow  me. 
But  I  never  paused.  I  came  on,  and  on,  and  on, 
only  eating  bread  now  and  then.  When  I  got  to 
Brussels,  I  saw  that  I  should  not  have  enough 
money,  and  I  sold  all  that  I  could  sell ;  but  here 
a  strange  thing  happened.  Putting  my  hand  into 
the  pocket  of  my  cloak,  I  found  a  half  napoleon. 
Wondering  and  wondering  how  it  came  there,  I 
remembered  that  on  the  way  from  Cologne  there 
was  a  young  workman  sitting  against  me.  I  was 
frightened  at  every  one,  and  did  not  like  to  be 


spoken  to.  At  first  he  tried  to  talk,  but  when  he 
saw  that  I  did  not  like  it,  he  left  off.  It  was  a 
long  journey ;  I  ate  nothing  but  a  bit  of  bread, 
and  he  once  offered  me  some  of  the  food  he 
brought  in,  but  I  refused  it.  I  do  believe  it  was 
he  who  put  that  bit  of  gold  in  my  pocket.  With- 
out it  I  could  hardly  have  got  to  Dover,  and  I  did 
walk  a  good  deal  of  the  way  from  Dover  to  Lon- 
don. I  knew  I  should  look  like  a  miserable  beg- 
gar-girl. I  wanted  not  to  look  very  miserable, 
because  if  I  found  my  mother  it  would  .grieve  her 
to  see  me  so.  But,  oh !  how  vain  my  hope  was  that 
she  would  be  there  to  see  me  come !  As  soon  as 
I  set  foot  in  London,  I  began  to  ask  for  Lambeth 
and  Blackfriars  Bridge,  but  they  were  a  long  way 
off,  and  I  went  wrong.  At  last  I  got  to  Black- 
friars  Bridge  and  asked  for  Colman  Street  Peo- 
ple shook  their  heads.  None  knew  it.  I  saw  it 
in  my  mind — our  door-steps,  and  the  white  tiles 
hung  in  the  windows,  and  the  large  brick  build- 
ing opposite  with  wide  doors.  But  there  was 
nothing  like  it.  At' last  when  I  asked  a  trades- 
man where  the  Coburg  Theatre  and  Colman  Street 
were,  he  said,  'Oh,  my  little  woman,  that's  all 
done  away  with.  The  old  streets  have  been  pull- 
ed down ;  every  thing  is  new.'  I  turned  away, 
and  felt  as  if  death  had  laid  a  hand  on  me.  He 
said  :  '  Stop,  stop !  young  woman ;  what  is  it  you're 
wanting  with  Colman  Street,  eh  ?'  meaning  well, 
perhaps.  But  his  tone  was  what  I  could  not  bear ; 
and  how  could  I  tell  him  what  I  wanted  ?  I  felt 
blinded  and  bewildered  with  a  sudden  shock.  I 
suddenly  felt  that  I  was  very  weak  and  weary,  and 
yet  where  could  I  go  ?  for  I  looked  so  poor  and 
dusty,  and  had  nothing  with  me — I  looked  like  a 
street  beggar.  And  I  was  afraid  of  all  places 
where  I  could  enter.  I  lost  my  trust.  I  thought  I 
was  forsaken.  It  seemed  that  I  had  been  in  a  fe- 
ver of  hope — delirious — all  the  way  from  Prague : 
I  thought  that  I  was  helped,  and  I  did  nothing 
but  strain  my  mind  forward  and  think  of  finding 
my  mother ;  and  now — there  I  stood  in  a  strange 
world.  All  who  saw  me  would  think  ill  of  me, 
and  I  must  herd  with  beggars.  I  stood  on  the 
bridge  and  looked  along  the  river.  People  were 
going  on  to  a  steamboat.  Many  of  them  seemed 
poor,  and  I  felt  as  if  it  would  .be  a  refuge  to  get 
away  from  the  streets :  perhaps  the  boat  would 
take  me  where  I  could  soon  get  into  a  solitude.  I 
had  still  some  pence  left,  and  I  bought  a  loaf  when 
I  went  on  the  boat.  I  wanted  to  have  a  little  tune 
and  strength  to  think  of  life  and  death.  How  could 
I  live  ?  And  now,  again,  it  seemed  that  if  ever  I 
were  to  find  my  mother  again,  death  was  the  way 
to  her.  I  ate,  that  I  might  have  strength  to  think. 
The  boat  set  me  down  at  a  place  along  the  river 
— I  don't  know  where — and  it  was  late  in  the 
evening.  I  found  some  large  trees  apart  from 
the  road  and  I  sat  down  under  them  that  I  might 
rest  through  the  night.  Sleep  must  have  soon 
come  to  me,  and  when  I  awoke  it  was  morning. 
The  birds  were  singing,  the  dew  was  white  about 
me,  I  felt  chill  and,  oh !  so  lonely !  I  got  up  and 
walked  and  followed  the  river  a  long  way,  and  then 
turned  back  again.  There  was  no  reason  why  I 
should  go  any  where.  The  world  about  me  seemed 
like  a  vision  that  was  hurrying  by  while  I  stood 
still  with  my  pain.  My  thoughts  were  stronger 
than  I  was :  they  rushed  in  and  forced  me  to  see 
all  my  life  from  the  beginning :  ever  since  I  waa 
carried  away  from  my  mother  I  had  felt  myself  a 
lost  child  taken  up  and  used  by  strangers,  who  did 


76 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


not  care  what  my  life  was  to  me,  but  only  what  I 
could  do  for  them.  It  seemed  all  a  weary  wander- 
ing and  heart-loneliness — as  if  I  had  been  forced 
to  go  to  merry-makings  without  the  expectation 
of  joy.  And  now  it  was  worse.  I  was  lost  again, 
and  I  dreaded  lest  any  stranger  should  notice  me 
and  speak  to  me.  I  had  a  terror  of  the  world. 
None  knew  me ;  all  would  mistake  me.  I  had 
seen  so  many  in  my  life  who  made  themselves 
glad  with  scorning,  and  laughed  at  another's 
shame.  What  could  I  do  ?  This  life  seemed  to 
be  closing  in  upon  me  with  a  wall  of  fire — every 
where  there  was  scorching  that  made  me  shrink. 
The  high  sunlight  made  me  shrink.  And  I  be- 
gan to  think  that  my  despair  was  the  voice  of 
God  telling  me  to  die.  But  it  would  take  me 
long  to  die  of  hunger.  Then  I  thought  of  my 
People,  how  they  had  been  driven  from  land  to 
land  and  been  afflicted,  and  multitudes  had  died 
of  misery  in  their  wandering — was  I  the  first? 
And  in  the  wars  and  troubles  when  Christians 
were  crudest,  our  fathers  had  sometimes  slain 
their  children  and  afterward  themselves  ;  it  was 
to  save  them  from  being  false  apostates.  That 
seemed  to  make  it  right  for  me  to  put  an  end  to 
my  life ;  for  calamity  had  closed  me  in  too,  and 
I  saw  no  pathway  but  to  evil.  But  my  mind  got 
into  war  with  itself,  for  there  were  contrary 
things  in  it.  I  knew  that  some  had  held  it 
wrong  to  hasten  their  own  death,  though  they 
were  in  the  midst  of  flames ;  and  while  I  had 
some  strength  left,  it  was  a  longing  to  bear  if 
I  ought  to  bear — else  where  was  the  good  of 
all  my  lif e  ?  It  had  not  been  happy  since  the 
first  years :  when  the  light  came  every  morning 
I  used  to  think,  '  I  will  bear  it'  But  always  be- 
fore, I  had  some  hope  ;  now  it  was  gone.  With 
these  thoughts  I  wandered  and  wandered,  in- 
wardly crying  to  the  Most  High,  from  whom  I 
should  not  flee  in  death  more  than  in  life — though 
I  had  no  strong  faith  that  He  cared  for  me.  The 
strength  seemed  departing  from  my  soul:  deep 
below  all  my  cries  was  the  feeling  that  I  was 
alone  and  forsaken.  The  more  I  thought,  the 
wearier  I  got,  till  it  seemed  I  was  not  thinking 
at  all,  but  only  the  sky  and  the  river  and  the 
Eternal  God  were  in  my  soul  And  what  was  it 
whether  I  died  or  lived  ?  If  I  lay  down  to  die 
in  the  river,  was  it  more  than  lying  down  to 
sleep? — for  there  too  I  committed  my  soul — I 
gave  myself  up.  I  could  not  hear  memories 
any  more :  I  could  only  feel  what  was  present 
in  me—it  was  all  one  longing  to  cease  from  my 
weary  life,  which  seemed  only  a  pain  outside  the 
great  peace  that  I  might  enter  into.  That  was 
how  it  was.  When  the  evening  came  and  the 
sun  was  gone,  it  seemed  as  if  that  was  all  I  had 
to  wait  for.  And  a  new  strength  came  into  me 
to  will  what  I  would  do.  You  know  what  I  did. 
I  was  going  to  die.  You  know  what  happened— 
did  he  not  tell  you  ?  Faith  came  to  me  again  : 
I  was  not  forsaken.  He  told  you  how  he  found 
me?" 

Mrs.  Meyrick  gave  no  audible  answer,  but  press- 
ed her  lips  against  Mirah's  forehead. 

"  She's  just  a  pearl :  the  mud  has  only  washed 
her,"  was  the  fervid  little  woman's  closing  com- 
mentary when,  tet&d-tete  with  Deronda  in  the 
back  parlor  that  evening,  she  had  conveyed  Mi- 
rah's story  to  him  with  much  vividness. 

"  What  is  your  feeling  about  a  search  for  this 


mother  ?"  said  Deronda.  "  Have  you  no  fears  ? 
I  have,  I  confess." 

"Oh,  I  believe  the  mother's  good,"  said  Mrs. 
Meyrick,  with  rapid  decisiveness.  "  Or  was  good. 
She  may  be  dead — that's  my  fear.  A  good  wom- 
an, you  may  depend :  you  may  know  it  by  the 
scoundrel  the  father  is.  Where  did  the  child 
get  her  goodness  from?  Wheaten  flour  has  to 
be  accounted  for." 

Deronda  was  rather  disappointed  at  this  an- 
swer :  he  had  wanted  a  confirmation  of  his  own 
judgment,  and  he  began  to  put  in  demurrers. 
The  argument  about  the  mother  would  not  apply 
to  the  brother ;  and  Mrs.  Meyrick  admitted  that 
the  brother  might  be  an  ugly  likeness  of  the  fa- 
ther. Then,  as  to  advertising,  if  the  name  was 
Cohen,  you  might  as  well  advertise  for  two  unde- 
scribed  terriers :  and  here  Mrs.  Meyrick  helped 
him,  for  the  idea  of  an  advertisement,  already 
mentioned  to  Mirah,  had  roused  the  poor  child's 
terror :  she  was  convinced  that  her  father  would 
see  it — he  saw  every  thing  in  the  papers.  Cer- 
tainly there  were  safer  means  than  advertising: 
men  might  be  set  to  work  whose  business  it  was 
to  find  missing  persons ;  but  Deronda  wished 
Mrs.  Meyrick  to  feel  with  him  that  it  would  be 
wiser  to  wait,  before  seeking  a  dubious — per- 
haps a  deplorable  result ;  especially  as  he  was  en- 
gaged to  go  abroad  the  next  week  for  a  couple  of 
months.  If  a  search  were  made,  he  would  like 
to  be  at  hand,  so  that  Mrs.  Meyrick  might  not  be 
unaided  in  meeting  any  consequences — supposing 
that  she  would  generously  continue  to  watch  over 
Mirah. 

"  We  should  be  very  jealous  of  any  one  who 
took  the  task  from  us,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  She 
will  stay  under  my  roof :  there  is  Hans's  old  room 
for  her." 

"  Will  she  be  content  to  wait?"  said  Deronda, 
anxiously. 

"No  trouble  there!  It  is  not  her  nature  to 
run  into  planning  and  devising ;  only  to  submit. 
See  how  she  submitted  to  that  father.  It  was  a 
wonder  to  herself  how  she  found  the  will  and 
contrivance  to  run  away  from  him.  About  find- 
ing her  mother,  her  only  notion  now  is  to  trust : 
since  you  were  sent  to  save  her  and  we  are  good 
to  her,  she  trusts  that  her  mother  will  be  found 
in  the  same  unsought  way.  And  when  she  is  talk- 
ing, I  catch  her  feeling  like  a  child." 

Mrs.  Meyrick  hoped  that  the  sum  Deronda  put 
into  her  hands  as  a  provision  for  Mirah's  wants 
was  more  than  would  be  needed :  after  a  little 
while  Mirah  would  perhaps  like  to  occupy  her- 
self as  the  other  girls  did,  and  make  herself  inde- 
pendent. Deronda  pleaded  that  she  must  need  a 
long  rest. 

"Oh  yes;  we  will  hurry  nothing,"  said  Mrs. 
Meyrick.  "  Rely  upon  it,  she  shall  be  taken  ten- 
der care  of.  If  you  like  to  give  me  your  address 
abroad,  I  will  write  to  let  you  know  how  we  get 
on.  It  is  not  fair  that  we  should  have  all  the 
pleasure  of  her  salvation  to  ourselves.  And  be- 
sides, I  want  to  make  believe  that  I  am  doing 
something  for  you  as  well  as  for  Mirah." 

"That  is  no  make-believe.  What  should  I 
have  done  without  you  last  night  ?  Every  thing 
would  have  gone  wrong.  I  shall  tell  Hans  that 
the  best  of  having  him  for  a  friend  is  knowing 
his  mother." 

After  that  they  joined  the  girls  in  the  other 
room,  where  Mirah  was  seated  placidly,  while  the 


BOOK  III— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


77 


others  were  telling  her  what  they  knew  about 
Mr.  Deronda — his  goodness  to  Hans,  and  all  the 
virtues  that  Hans  had  reported  of  him. 

"  Kate  burns  a  pastille  before  his  portrait  ev- 
ery day,"  said  Mab.  "  And  I  carry  his  signature 
in  a  little  black  silk  bag  round  my  neck  to  keep 
off  the  cramp.  And  Amy  says  the  multiplication 
table  in  his  name.  We  must  all  do  something 
extra  in  honor  of  him,  now  he  has  brought  you 
to  us." 

"I  suppose  he  is  too  great  a  person  to  want 
any  thing,"  said  Mirah,  smiling  at  Mab,  and  ap- 
pealing to  the  graver  Amy.  "  He  is  perhaps  very 
high  in  the  world  ?" 

"He  is  very  much  above  us  in  rank,"  said 
Amy.  "  He  is  related  to  grand  people.  I  dare 
say  he  leans  on  some  of  the  satin  cushions  we 
prick  our  fingers  over." 

"  I  am  glad  he  is  of  high  rank,"  said  Mirah, 
with  her  usual  quietness. 

"  Now,  why  are  you  glad  of  that  ?"  said  Amy, 
rather  suspicious  of  this  sentiment,  and  on  the 
watch  for  Jewish  peculiarities  which  had  not 
appeared. 

"  Because  I  have  always  disliked  men  of  high 
rank  before." 

"Oh,  Mr.  Deronda  is  not  so  very  high,"  said 
Kate.  "He  need  not  hinder  us  from  thinking 
ill  of  the  whole  peerage  and  baronetage  if  we 
like." 

When  he  entered,  Mirah  rose  with  the  same 
look  of  grateful  reverence  that  she  had  lifted  to 
him  the  evening  before:  impossible  to  see  a 
creature  freer  at  once  from  embarrassment  and 
boldness.  Her  theatrical  training  had  left  no 
recognizable  trace;  probably  her  manners  had 
not  much  changed  since  she  played  the  forsaken 
child  at  nine  years  of  age ;  and  she  had  grown 
up  in  her  simplicity  and  truthfulness  like  a  little 
flower  seed  that  absorbs  the  chance  confusion  of 
its  surroundings  into  its  own  definite  mould  of 
beauty.  Deronda  felt  that  he  was  making  ac- 
quaintance with  something  quite  new  to  him  hi 
the  form  of  womanhood.  For  Mirah  was  not 
child-like  from  ignorance :  her  experience  of  evil 
and  trouble  was  deeper  and  stranger  than  his 
own.  He  felt  inclined  to  watch  her  and  listen  to 
her  as -if  she  had  come  from  a  far-off  shore  in- 
habited by  a  race  different  from  our  own. 

But  for  that  very  reason  he  made  his  visit 
brief:  with  his  usual  activity  of  imagination  as 
to  how  his  conduct  might  affect  others,  he  shrank 
from  what  might  seem  like  curiosity,  or  the  as- 
sumption of  a  right  to  know  as  much  as  he  pleased 
of  one  to  whom  he  had  done  a  service.  For  ex- 
ample, he  would  have  liked  to  hear  her  sing,  but 
he  would  have  felt  the  expression  of  such  a  wish 
to  be  a  rudeness  in  him — since  she  could  not  re- 
fuse, and  he  would  all  the  while  have  a  sense  that 
she  was  being  treated  like  one  whose  accomplish- 
ments were  to  be  ready  on  demand.  And  what- 
ever reverence  could  be  shown  to  woman,  he  was 
bent  on  showing  to  this  girl.  Why?  He  gave 
himself  several  good  reasons ;  but  whatever  one 
does  with  a  strong  spontaneous  outflow  of  will, 
has  a  store  of  motive  that  it  would  be  hard  to 
put  into  words.  Some  deeds  seem  little  more 
than  interjections  which  give  vent  to  the  long 
passion  of  a  life. 

So  Deronda  soon  took  his  farewell  for  the  two 
months  during  which  he  expected  to  be  absent 
from  London,  and  in  a  few  days  he  was  on  his 


way  with  Sir  Hugo  and  Lady  Mallinger  to  Leu- 
bronn. 

He  had  fulfilled  his  intention  of  telling  them 
about  Mirah.  The  Baronet  was  decidedly  of  opin- 
ion that  the  search  for  the  mother  and  brother 
had  better  be  let  alone.  Lady  Mallinger  was 
much  interested  in  the  poor  girl,  observing  that 
there  was  a  Society  for  the  Conversion  of  the 
Jews,  and  that  it  was  to  be  hoped  Mirah  would 
embrace  Christianity;  but  perceiving  that  Sir 
Hugo  looked  at  her  with  amusement,  she  con- 
cluded that  she  had  said  something  foolish.  Lady 
Mallinger  felt  apologetically  about  herself  as  a 
woman  who  had  produced  nothing  but  daughters 
in  a  case  where  sons  were  required,  and  hence  re- 
garded the  apparent  contradictions  of  the  world 
as  probably  due  to  the  weakness  of  her  own  un- 
derstanding. But  when  she  was  much  puzzled, 
it  was  her  habit  to  say  to  herself,  "  I  will  ask 
Daniel."  Deronda  was  altogether  a  convenience 
in  the  family ;  and  Sir  Hugo  too,  after  intending 
to  do  the  best  for  him,  had  begun  to  feel  that 
the  pleasantest  result  would  be  to  have  this  sub- 
stitute for  a  son  always  ready  at  his  elbow. 

This"  was  the  history  of  Deronda,  so  far  as  he 
knew  it,  up  to  the  time  of  that  visit  to  Leubronn 
in  which  he  saw  Gwendolen  Harleth  at  the  gam- 
ing table. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

It  is  a  common  sentence  that  Knowledge  is  power 
but  who  hath  duly  considered  or  set  forth  the  power 
of  Ignorance  ?  Knowledge  slowly  builds  up  what  Ig- 
norance in  an  hour  pulls  down.  Knowledge,  through 
patient  and  frugal  centuries,  enlarges  discovery  and 
makes  record  of  it;  Ignorance,  wanting  its  day's  din- 
ner, lights  a  fire  with  the  record,  and  gives  a  flav9r  to 
its  one  roast  with  the  burnt  souls  of  many  generations. 
Knowledge,  instructing  the  sense,  refining  and  multi- 
plying needs,  transforms  itself  into  skill,  and  makes 
life  various  with  a  new  six  days'  work ;  comes  Igno- 
rance drunk  on  the  seventh,  with  a  firkin  of  oil  and  a 
match  and  an  easy  "  Let  there  not  be" — and  the  many- 
colored  creation  is  shriveled  up  in  blackness.  Of  a 
truth,  Knowledge  is  power,  but  it  is  a  power  reined  by 
scruple,  having  a  conscience  of  what  must  be  and  what 
may  be ;  whereas  Ignorance  is  a  blind  giant  who,  let 
him  but  wax  unbound,  would  make  it  a  sport  to  seize 
the  pillars  that  hold  up  the  long-wrought  fabric  of  hu- 
man good,  and  turn  all  the  places  of  joy  dark  as  a  bur- 
ied Babylon.  And  looking  at  life  parcel-wise,  in  the 
growth  of  a  single  lot,  who  having  a  practiced  vision 
may  not  see  that  ignorance  of  the  true  bond  between 
events,  and  false  conceit  of  means  whereby  sequences 
may  be  compelled— like  that  falsity  of  eyesight  which 
overlooks  the  gradations  of  distance,  seeing  that  which 
is  afar  off  as  if  it  were  within  a  step  or  a  grasp— pre- 
cipitate the  mistaken  soul  on  destruction  ? 

IT  was  half  past  ten  in  the  morning  when 
Gwendolen  Harleth,  after  her  gloomy  journey 
from  Leubronn,  arrived  at  the  station  from  which 
she  must  drive  to  Offendene.  No  carriage  or 
friend  was  awaiting  her,  for  in  the  telegram  she 
had  sent  from  Dover  she  had  mentioned  a  later 
train,  and  in  her  impatience  of  lingering  at  a 
London  station  she  had  set  off  without  picturing 
what  it  would  be  to  arrive  unannounced  at  half 
an  hour's  drive  from  home — at  one  of  those  sta- 
tions which  have  been  fixed  on  not  as  near  any 
where  but  as  equidistant  from  every  where.  De- 
posited as  a  feine-sok  with  her  large  trunks,  and 
having  to  wait  while  a  vehicle  was  being  got  from 
the  large-sized  lantern  called  the  Railway  Inn, 
Gwendolen  felt  that  the  dirty  paint  in  the  waiting- 
room,  the  dusty  decanter  of  flat  water,  and  the 
texts  in  large  letters  calling  on  her  to  repent  and 
be  converted,  were  part  of  the  dreary  prospect 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


opened  by  her  family  troubles ;  and  she  hurried 
away  to  the  outer  door  looking  toward  the  lane 
and  fields.  But  here  the  very  gleams  of  sunshine 
seemed  melancholy,  for  the  autumnal  leaves  and 
grass  were  shivering,  and  the  wind  was  turning 
up  the  feathers  of  a  cock  and  two  croaking  hens 
which  had  doubtless  parted  with  their  grown-up 
offspring,  and  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  them- 
selves. The  railway  official  also  seemed  without 
resources,  and  his  innocent  demeanor  in  observ- 
ing Gwendolen  and  her  trunks  was  rendered 
intolerable  by  the  cast  in  his  eye;  especially 
since,  being  a  new  man,  he  did  not  know  her,  and 
must  conclude  that  she  was  not  very  high  in  the 
world.  The  vehicle— a  dirty  old  barouche— was 
within  sight,  and  was  being  slowly  prepared  by 
an  elderly  laborer.  Contemptible  details  these, 
to  make  part  of  a  history ;  yet  the  turn  of  most 
lives  is  hardly  to  be  accounted  for  without  them. 
They  are  continually  entering  with  cumulative 
force  into  a  mood  until  it  gets  the  mass  and  mo- 
mentum of  a  theory  or  a  motive.  Even  philoso- 
phy is  not  quite  free  from  such  determining  in- 
fluences ;  and  to  be  dropped  solitary  at  an  ugly 
irrelevant-looking  spot,  with  a  sense  of  no  income 
on  the  mind,  might  well  prompt  a  man  to  dis- 
couraging speculation  on  the  origin  of  things  and 
the  reason  of  a  world  where  a  subtle  thinker 
found  himself  so  badly  off.  How  much  more 
might  such  trifles  tell  on  a  young  lady  equipped 
for  society  with  a  fastidious  taste,  an  Indian 
shawl  over  her  arm,  some  ten  cubic  feet  of  trunks 
by  her  side,  and  a  mortal  dislike  to  the  new  con- 
sciousness of  poverty  which  was  stimulating  her 
imagination  of  disagreeables  ?  At  any  rate  they 
told  heavily  on  poor  Gwendolen,  and  helped  to 
quell  her  resistant  spirit.  What  was  the  good 
of  living  in  the  midst  of  hardships,  ugliness,  and 
humiliation  ?  This  was  the  beginning  of  being 
at  home  again,  and  it  was  a  sample  of  what  she 
had  to  expect. 

Here  was  the  theme  on  which  her  discontent 
rung  its  sad  changes  during  her  slow  drive  in  the 
uneasy  barouche,  with  one  great  trunk  squeezing 
the  meek  driver,  and  the  other  fastened  with  a 
rope  on  the  seat  in  front  of  her.  Her  ruling  vis- 
ion all  the  way  from  Leubronn  had  been  that 
the  family  would  go  abroad  again ;  for  of  course 
there  must  be  some  little  income  left — her  mam- 
ma did  not  mean  that  they  would  have  literally 
nothing.  To  go  to  a  dull  place  abroad  and  live 
poorly  was  the  dismal  future  that  threatened 
her :  she  had  seen  plenty  of  poor  English  people 
abroad,  and  imagined  herself  plunged  in  the  de- 
spised dullness  6f  their  ill-plenished  lives,  with 
Alice,  Bertha,  Fanny,  and  Isabel  all  growing  up 
in  tediousness  around  her,  while  she  advanced 
toward  thirty,  and  her  mamma  got  more  and 
more  melancholy.  But  she  did  not  mean  to  sub- 
mit, and  let  misfortune  do  what  it  would  with 
her :  she  had  not  yet  quite  believed  in  the  mis- 
fortune; but  weariness,  and  disgust  with  this 
wretched  arrival,  had  begun  to  affect  her  like  an 
uncomfortable  waking,  worse  than  the  uneasy 
dreams  which  had  gone  before.  The  self-delight 
with  which  she  had  kissed  her  image  in  the  glass 
had  faded  before  the  sense  of  futility  in  being 
any  thing  whatever— charming,  clever,  resolute 
— what  was  the  good  of  it  all?  Events  might 
turn  out  anyhow,  and  men  were  hateful.  Yes, 
men  were  hateful.  Those  few  words  were  filled 
out  with  very  vivid  memories.  But  in  these  last 


hours  a  certain  change  had  come  over  their 
meaning.  It  is  one  thing  to  hate  stolen  goods, 
and  another  thing  to  hate  them  the  more  because 
their  being  stolen  hinders  us  from  making  use 
of  them.  Gwendolen  had  begun  to  be  angry 
with  Grandcourt  for  being  what  had  hindered 
her  from  marrying  him,  angry  with  him  as  the 
cause  of  her  present  dreary  lot. 

But  the  slow,  drive  was  nearly  at  an  end,  and 
the  lumbering  vehicle  coming  up  the  avenue  was 
within  sight  of  the  windows.  A  figure  appearing 
under  the  portico  brought  a  rush  of  new  and  less 
selfish  feeling  in  Gwendolen,  and  when,  springing 
from  the  carriage,  she  saw  the  dear  beautiful  face, 
with  fresh  lines  of  sadness  in  it,  she  threw  her 
arms  round  her  mother's  neck,  and  for  the  mo- 
ment felt  all  sorrows  only  in  relation  to  her 
mother's  feeling  about  them. 

Behind,  of  course,  were  the  sad  faces  of  the 
four  superfluous  girls,  each,  poor  thing — like  those 
other  many  thousand  sisters  of  us  all — having  her 
peculiar  world  which  was  of  no  importance  to  any 
one  else,  but  all  of  them  feeling  Gwendolen's 
presence  to  be  somehow  a  relenting  of  misfortune : 
where  Gwendolen  was,  something  interesting 
would  happen ;  even  her  hurried  submission  to 
their  kisses,  and  "  Now  go  away,  girls,"  carried 
the  sort  of  comfort  which  all  weakness  finds  in 
decision  and  authoritativeness.  Good  Miss  Mer- 
ry, whose  air  of  meek  depression,  hitherto  held 
unaccountable  in  a  governess  affectionately  at- 
tached to  the  family,  was  now  at  the  general  level 
of  circumstances,  did  not  expect  any  greeting,  but 
busied  herself  with  the  trunks  and  the  coach- 
man's pay ;  while  Mrs.  Davilow  and  Gwendolen 
hastened  up  stairs  and  shut  themselves  in  the 
black  and  yellow  bedroom. 

"  Never  mind,  mamma  dear,"  said  Gwendolen, 
tenderly  pressing  her  handkerchief  against  the 
tears  that  were  rolling  down  Mrs.  Davilow's 
cheeks.  "  Never  mind.  I  don't  mind.  I  will  do 
something.  I  will  be  something.  Things  will 
come  right.  It  seemed  worse  because  I  was  away. 
Come  now  !  you  must  be  glad  because  I  am  here." 

Gwendolen  felt  every  word  of  that  speech.  A 
rush  of  compassionate  tenderness  stirred  all  her 
capability  of  generous  resolution ;  and  the  self- 
confident  projects  which  had  vaguely  glanced  be- 
fore her  during  her  journey  sprang' instantaneous- 
ly into  new  definiteness.  Suddenly  she  seemed 
to  perceive  how  she  could  be  "  something."  It 
was  one  of  her  best  moments,  and  the  fond  moth- 
er, forgetting  every  thing  below  that  tide-mark, 
looked  at  her  with  a  sort  of  adoration.  She  said, 

"  Bless  you,  my  good,  good  darling !  I  can  be 
happy,  if  you  can." 

But  later  in  the  day  there  was  an  ebb ;  the  old 
slippery  rocks,  the  old  weedy  places,  re-appeared. 
Naturally  there  was  a  shrinking  of  courage  as 
misfortune  ceased  to  be  a  mere  announcement, 
and  began  to  disclose  itself  as  a  grievous,  tyran- 
nical inmate.  At  first — that  ugly  drive  at  an  end 
— it  was  still  Offendene  that  Gwendolen  had  come 
home  to,  and  all  surroundings  of  immediate  con- 
sequence to  her  were  still  there  to  secure  her 
personal  ease:  the  roomy  stillness  of  the  large, 
solid  house  while  she  rested,  all  the  luxuries  of 
her  toilet  cared  for  without  trouble  to  her,  and 
a  little  tray  with  her  favorite  food  brought  to  her 
in  private.  For  she  had  said,  "Keep  them  all 
away  from  us  to-day,  mamma ;  let  you  and  me 
be  alone  together." 


BOOK  III.— MAIDEXS  CHOOSING. 


79 


When  Gwendolen  came  down  into  the  draw- 
ing-room, fresh  as  a  newly  dipped  swan,  and  sat 
leaning  against  the  cushions  of  the  settee  beside 
her  mamma,  their  misfortune  had  not  yet  turned 
its  face  and  breath  upon  her.  She  felt  prepared 
to  hear  every  thing,  and  began,  in  a  tone  of  delib- 
erate intention, 

"  What  have  you  thought  of  doing  exactly, 
mamma  ?" 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  the  next  thing  to  be  done  is  to 
move  away  from  this  house.  Mr.  Haynes,  most 
fortunately,  is  as  glad  to  have  it  now  as  he  would 
have  been  when  we  took  it.  Lord  Brackenshaw's 
agent  is  to  arrange  every  thing  with  him  to  the 
best  advantage  for  us :  Bazley,  you  know ;  not  at 
all  an  ill-natured  man." 

"  I  can  not  help  thinking  that  Lord  Bracken- 
shaw  would  let  you  stay  here  rent  free,  mamma," 
said  Gwendolen,  whose  talents  had  not  been  ap- 
plied to  business  so  much  as  to  discernment  of  the 
admiration  excited  by  her  charms. 

"  My  dear  child,  Lord  Brackenshaw  is  in  Scot- 
land, and  knows  nothing  about  us.  Neither  ycur 
uncle  nor  I  would  choose  to  apply  to  him.  Be- 
sides, what  could  we  do  in  this  house  without 
servants,  and  without  money  to  warm  it  ?  The 
sooner  we  are  out  the  better.  We  have  nothing 
to  carry  but  our  clothes,  you  know." 

"I  suppose  you  mean  to  go  abroad,, then  ?" 
said  Gwendolen.  After  all,  this  was  what  she  had 
familiarized  her  mind  with. 

"  Oh  no,  dear,  no.  How  could  we  travel  ?  You 
never  did  learn  any  thing  about  income  and  ex- 
penses," said  Mrs.  Davilow,  trying  to  smile,  and 
putting  her  hand  on  Gwendolen's  as  she  added, 
mournfully,  "  That  makes  it  so  much  harder  for 
you,  my  pet." 

"  But  where  are  we  to  go  ?"  said  Gwendolen, 
with  a  trace  of  sharpness  in  her  tone.  She  felt 
a  new  current  of  fear  passing  through  her. 

"  It  is  all  decided.  A  little  furniture  is  to  be 
got  in  from  the  Rectory — all  that  can  be  spared." 
Mrs.  Davilow  hesitated.  She  dreaded  the  reality 
for  herself  less  than  the  shock  she  must  give 
Gwendolen,  who  looked  at  her  with  tense  expect- 
ancy, but  was  silent. 

"  It  is  Sawyer's  Cottage  we  are  to  go  to." 

At  first  Gwendolen  remained  silent,  paling  with 
anger — justifiable  anger,  in  her  opinion.  Then 
she  said,  with  haughtiness, 

"  That  is  impossible.  Something  else  than  that 
ought  to  have  been  thought  of.  My  uncle  ought 
not  to  allow  that.  I  will  not  submit  to  it." 

"  My  sweet  child,  what  else  could  have  been 
thought  of  ?  Your  uncle,  I  am  sure,  is  as  kind  as 
he  can  be ;  but  he  is  suffering  himself :  he  has  his 
family  to  bring  up.  And  do  you  quite  under- 
stand ?  You  must  remember — we  have  nothing. 
We  shall  have  absolutely  nothing  except  what  he 
and  my  sister  give  us.  They  have  been  as  wise 
and  active  as  possible,  and  we  must  try  to  earn 
something.  I  and  the  girls  are  going  to  work 
a  table-cloth  border  for  the  Ladies'  Charity  at 
Wancester,  and  a  communion  cloth  that  the  pa- 
rishioners are  to  present  to  Pennicote  church." 

Mrs.  Davilow  went  into  these  details  timidly ; 
but  how  else  was  she  to  bring  the  fact  of  their 
position  home  to  this  poor  child,  who,  alas !  must 
submit  at  present,  whatever  might  be  in  the  back- 
ground for  her  ?  and  she  herself  had  a  supersti- 
tion that  there  must  be  something  better  in  the 
background. 


"But  surely  somewhere  else  than  Sawyer's  Cot- 
tage might  have  been  found,"  Gwendolen  persist- 
ed— taken  hold  of  (as  if  in  a  nightmare)  by  the 
image  of  this  house  where  an  exciseman  had  lived. 

"  No  indeed,  dear.  You  know  houses  are  scarce, 
and  we  may  be  thankful  to  get  any  thing  so  pri- 
vate. It  is  not  so  very  bad.  There  are  two  little 
parlors  and  four  bedrooms.  You  shall  sit  alone 
whenever  you  like." 

The  ebb  of  sympathetic  care  for  her  mamma 
had  gone  so  low  just  now  that  Gwendolen  took 
no  notice  of  these  deprecatory  words. 

"  I  can  not  conceive  that  all  your  property  is 
gone  at  once,  mamma.  How  can  you  be  sure  in 
so  short  a  time?  It  is  not  a  week  since  you 
wrote  to  me." 

"  The  first  news  came  much  earlier,  dear.  But 
I  would  not  spoil  your  pleasure  till  it  was  quite 


"  Oh,  how  vexatious !"  said  Gwendolen,  color- 
ing with  fresh  anger.  "  If  I  had  known,  I  could 
have  brought  home  the  money  I  had  won ;  and 
for  want  of  knowing,  I  staid  and  lost  it.  I  had 
nearly  two  hundred  pounds,  and  it  would  have 
done  for  us  to  live  on  a  little  while,  till  I  could 
have  carried  out  some  plan."  She  paused  an  in- 
stant, and  then  added,  more  impetuously,  "  Every 
thing  has  gone  against  me.  People  have  come 
near  me  only  to  blight  me." 

Among  the  "  people"  she  was  including  Deron- 
da.  If  he  had  not  interfered  in  her  life,  she  would 
have  gone  to  the  gaming  table  again  with  a  few 
napoleons,  and  might  have  won  back  her  losses. 

"  We  must  resign  ourselves  to  the  will  of  Prov- 
idence, my  child,"  said  poor  Mrs.  Davilow,  startled 
by  this  revelation  of  the  gambling,  but  not  dar- 
ing to  say  more.  She  felt  sure  that  "  people" 
meant  Grandcourt,  about  whom  her  lips  were 
sealed.  And  Gwendolen  answered  immediately, 

"  But  I  don't  resign  myself.  I  shall  .do  what  I 
can  against  it.  What  is  the  good  of  calling  peo- 
ple's wickedness  Providence  ?  You  said  in  your 
letter  it  was  Mr.  Lassman's  fault  we  had  lost  our 
money.  Has  he  run  away  with  it  all?" 

"  No,  dear ;  you  don't  understand.  There  were 
great  speculations :  he  meant  to  gain.  It  was  all 
about  mines  and  things  of  that  sort.  He  risked 
too  much." 

"  I  don't  call  that  Providence :  it  was  his  im- 
providence with  our  money,  and  he  ought  to  be 
punished.  Can't  we  go  to  law  and  recover  our 
fortune  ?  My  uncle  ought  to  take  measures,  and 
not  sit  down  by  such  wrongs.  We  ought  to  go 
to  law." 

"My  dear  child,  law  can  never  bring  back 
money  lost  in  that  way.  Your  uncle  says  it  is 
milk  spilled  upon  the  ground.  Besides,  one  must 
have  a  fortune  to  get  any  law:  there  is  no  law 
for  people  who  are  ruined.  And  our  money  has 
only  gone  along  with  other  people's.  We  are  not 
the  only  sufferers :  others  have  to  resign  them- 
selves besides  us." 

"  But  I  don't  resign  myself  to  live  at  Sawyer's 
Cottage  and  see  you  working  for  sixpences  and 
shillings  because  of  that.  I  shall  not  do  it.  I 
shall  do  what  is  more  befitting  our  rank  and  ed- 
ucation." 

"I  am  sure 'your  uncle  and  all  of  us  will  ap- 
prove of  that,  dear,  and  admire  you  the  more  for 
it,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  glad  of  an  unexpected 
opening  for  speaking  on  a  difficult  subject.  "  I 
didn't  mean  that  you  should  resign  yourself  to 


80 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


worse  when  any  thing  better  offered  itself.  Both 
your  uncle  and  aunt  have  felt  that  your  abilities 
and  education  were  a  fortune  for  you,  and  they  have 
already  heard  of  something  within  your  reach." 

"What  is  that,  mamma V"  Some  of  Gwen- 
dolen's anger  gave  way  to  interest,  and  she  was 
not  without  romantic  conjectures. 

"There  are  two  situations  that  offer  them- 
selves. One  is  in  a  bishop's  family,  where  there 
are  three  daughters,  and  the  other  is  in  quite  a 
high  class  of  school;  and  in  both  your  French 
and  music  and  dancing,  and  then  your  manners 
and  habits  as  a  lady,  are  exactly  what  is  wanted. 
Each  is  a  hundred  a  year — and — just  for  the 
present" — Mrs.  Davilow  had  become  frightened 
and  hesitating — "to  save  you  from  the  petty, 
common  way  of  living  that  we  must  go  to — you 
would  perhaps  accept  one  of  the  two." 

"What!  be  like  Miss  Graves  at  Madame  Meu- 
iiier's  ?  No." 

"  I  think,  myself,  that  Dr.  Mompert's  would  be 
more  suitable.  There  could  be  no  hardship  in  a 
bishop's  family." 

"Excuse  me,  mamma.  There  are  hardships 
every  where  for  a  governess.  And  I  don't  see 
that  it  would  be  pleasanter  to  be  looked  down  on 
in  a  bishop's  family  than  in  any  other.  Besides, 
you  know  very  well  I  hate  teaching.  Fancy  me 
shut  up  with  three  awkward  girls  something  like 
Alice !  I  would  rather  emigrate  than  be  a  gov- 
erness." 

What  it  precisely  was  to  emigrate,  Gwendolen 
was  not  called  on  to  explain.  Mrs.  Davilow  was 
mute,  seeing  no  outlet,  and  thinking  with  dread 
of  the  collision  that  might  happen  when  Gwen- 
dolen had  to  meet  her  uncle  and  aunt.  There 
was  an  air  of  reticence  in  Gwendolen's  haughty 
resistant  speeches,  which  implied  that  she  had  a 
definite  plan  in  reserve ;  and  her  practical  igno- 
rance, continually  exhibited,  could  not  nullify  the 
mother's  belief  in  the  effectiveness  of  that  forcible 
will  and  daring  which  had  held  the  mastery  over 
herself. 

"  I  have  some  ornaments,  mamma,  and  I  could 
sell  them,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  They  would  make 
a  sum :  I  want  a  little  sum — just  to  go  on  with. 
I  dare  say  Marshall  at  Wancester  would  take 
them :  I  know  he  showed  me  some  bracelets  once 
that  he  said  he  had  bought  from  a  lady.  Jocosa 
might  go  and  ask  him.  Jocosa  is  going  to  leave 
us,  of  course.  But  she  might  do  that  first." 

"  She  would  do  any  thing  she  could,  poor  dear 
soul !  I  have  not  told  you  yet — she  wanted  me  to 
take  all  her  savings — her  three  hundred  pounds. 
I  tell  her  to  set  up  a  little  school.  It  will  be  hard 
for  her  to  go  into  a  new  family,  now  she  has  been 
so  long  with  us." 

"Oh,  recommend  her  for  the  bishop's  daugh- 
ters," said  Gwendolen,  with  a  sudden  gleam  of 
laughter  in  her  face.  "  I  am  sure  she  will  do  bet- 
ter than  I  should." 

"  Do  take  care  not  to  say  such  things  to  your 
uncle,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow.  "  He  will  be  hurt  at 
your  despising  what  he  has  exerted  himself  about. 
But  I  dare  say  you  have  something  else  in  your 
mind  that  he  might  not  disapprove,  if  you  con- 
sulted him." 

"  There  is  some  one  else  I  want  to  consult  first. 
Are  the  Arrowpoints  at  Quetcham  still,  and  is 
Herr  Klesmer  there  ?  But  I  dare  say  you  know 
nothing  about  it,  poor  dear  mamma.  Can  Jef- 
fries go  on  horseback  with  a  note  ?" 


"  Oh,  my  dear,  Jeffries  is  not  here,  and  the  deal- 
er has  taken  the  horses.  But  some  one  could  go 
for  us  from  Leek's  farm.  The  Arrowpoints  are 
at  Quetcham,  I  know.  Miss  Arrowpoint  left  her 
card  the  other  day :  I  could  not  see  her.  But  I 
don't  know  about  Herr  Klesmer.  Do  you  want 
to  send  before  to-morrow  ?" 

"  Yes,  as  soon  as  possible.  I  will  write  a  note," 
said  Gwendolen,  rising. 

"  What  can  you  be  thinking  of,  Gwen  ?"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  relieved  in  the  midst  of  her  won- 
derment by  signs  of  alacrity  and  better  humor. 

"  Don't  mind  what,  there's  a  dear  good  mam- 
ma," said  Gwendolen,  reseating  herself  a  moment 
to  give  atoning  caresses.  "  I  mean  to  do  some- 
thing. Never  mind  what,  until  it  is  all  settled. 
And  then  you  shall  be  comforted.  The  dear  face ! 
— it  is  ten  years  older  in  these  three  weeks.  Now, 
now,  now !  don't  cry" — Gwendolen,  holding  her 
mamma's  head  with  both  hands,  kissed  the  trem- 
bling eyelids.  "But  mind  you  don't  contradict 
me  or  put  hinderances  in  my  way.  I  must  decide 
for  myself.  I  can  not  be  dictated  to  by  my  uncle 
or  any  one  else.  My  life  is  my  own  affair.  And 
I  think" — here  her  tone  took  an  edge  of  scorn — 
"  I  think  I  can  do  better  for  you  than  let  you  live 
in  Sawyer's  Cottage." 

In  uttering  this  last  sentence  Gwendolen  again 
rose,  and  went  to  a  desk,  where  she  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing note  to  Klesmer : 

"Miss  Harleth  presents  her  compliments  to 
Herr  Klesmer,  and  ventures  to  request  of  him  the 
very  great  favor  that  he  will  call  upon  her,  if  pos- 
sible, to-morrow.  Her  reason  for  presuming  so 
far  on  his  kindness  is  of  a  very  serious  nature. 
Unfortunate  family  circumstances  have  obliged 
her  to  take  a  course  hi  which  she  can  only  turn 
for  advice  to  the  great  knowledge  and  judgment 
of  Herr  Klesmer." 

;  Pray  get  this  sent  to  Quetcham  at  once,  mam- 
ma," said  Gwendolen,  as  she  addressed  the  letter. 
"  The  man  must  be  told  to  wait  for  an  answer. 
Let  no  time  be  lost." 

For  the  moment  the  absorbing  purpose  was  to 
get  the  letter  dispatched ;  but  when  she  had  been 
assured  on  this  point,  another  anxiety  arose  and 
kept  her  in  a  state  of  uneasy  excitement.  If 
Klesmer  happened  not  to  be  at  Quetcham,  what 
could  she  do  next?  Gwendolen's  belief  in  her 
star,  so  to  speak,  had  had  some  bruises.  Things 
had  gone  against  her.  A  splendid  marriage  which 
presented  itself  within  reach  had  shown  a  hideous 
flaw.  The  chances  of  roulette  had  not  adjusted 
themselves  to  her  claims ;  and  a  man  of  whom 
she  knew  nothing  had  thrust  himself  between  her 
and  her  intentions.  The  conduct  of  those  unin- 
teresting people  who  managed  the  business  of 
the  world  had  been  culpable  just  in  the  points 
most  injurious  to  her  in  particular.  Gwendolen 
Harleth,  with  all  her  beauty  and  conscious  force, 
felt  the  close  threats  of  humiliation :  for  the  first 
time  the  conditions  of  this  world  seemed  to  her 
like  a  hurrying,  roaring  crowd  in  which  she  had 
got  astray,  no  more  cared  for  and  protected  than 
a  myriad  of  other  girls,  in  spite  of  its  being  a 
peculiar  hardship  to  her.  If  Klesmer  were  not 
at  Quetcham,  that  would  be  all  of  a  piece  with 
the  rest :  the  unwelcome  negative  urged  itself  as 
a  probability,  and  set  her  brain  working  at  des- 
perate alternatives  which  might  deliver  her  from 


BOOK   III.— MAIDENS  CHOOSIXG. 


81 


Sawyer's  Cottage  or  the  ultimate  necessity  of 
"  taking  a  situation" — a  phrase  that  summed  up 
for  her  the  disagreeables  most  wounding  to  her 

Eride,  most  irksome  to  her  tastes ;    at  least  so 
IT  as  her  experience  enabled  her  to  imagine  dis- 
agreeables. 

Still  Klesmer  might  be  there,  and  Gwendolen 
thought  of  the  result  in  that  case  with  a  hopeful- 
ness which  even  cast  a  satisfactory  light  over  her 
peculiar  troubles,  as  what  might  well  enter  into 
the  biography  of  celebrities  and  remarkable  per- 
sons. And  if  she  had  heard  her  immediate  ac- 
quaintances cross-examined  as  to  whether  they 
thought  her  remarkable,  the  first  who  said  "  No" 
would  have  surprised  her. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

We  please  our  fancy  with  ideal  webs 
Of  innovation,  but  our  life  meanwhile 
Is  in  the  loom,  where  busy  passion  plies 
The  shuttle  to  and  fro,  and  gives  our  deeds 
The  accustomed  pattern. 

GWENDOLEN'S  note,  coming  "pat  betwixt  too 
early  and  too  late,"  was  put  into  Klesmer's  hands 
just  when  he  was  leaving  Quetcham,  and  in  order 
to  meet  her  appeal  to  his  kindness,  he,  with  some 
inconvenience  to  himself,  spent  the  night  at  Wan- 
cester.  There  were  reasons  why  he  would  not 
remain  at  Quetcham. 

That  magnificent  mansion,  fitted  with  regard 
to  the  greatest  expense,  had,  in  fact,  become  too 
hot  for  him,  its  owners  having,  like  some  great 
politicians,  been  astonished  at  an  insurrection 
against  the  established  order  of  things,  which 
we  plain  people,  after  the  event,  can  perceive  to 
have  been  prepared  under  their  very  noses. 

There  were,  as  usual,  many  guests  in  the  house, 
and  among  them  one  in  whom  Miss  Arrowpoint 
foresaw  a  new  pretender  to  her  hand — a  political 
man  of  good  family  who  confidently  expected  a 
peerage,  and  felt  on  public  grounds  that  he  re- 
quired a  larger  fortune  to  support  the  title  prop- 
erly. Heiresses  vary,  and  persons  interested  in 
one  of  them  beforehand  are  prepared  to  find  that 
she  is  too  yellow  or  too  red,  tall  and  toppling  or 
short  and  square,  violent  and  capricious  or  moony 
and  insipid;  but  in  every  case  it  is  taken  for 
granted  that  she  will  consider  herself  an  append- 
age to  her  fortune,  and  marry  where  others  think 
her  fortune  ought  to  go.  Nature,  however,  not 
only  accommodates  herself  ill  to  our  favorite  prac- 
tices by  making  "only  children"  daughters,  but 
also  now  and  then  endows  the  misplaced  daughter 
with  a  clear  head  and  a  strong  will.  The  Arrow- 
points  had  already  felt  some  anxiety  owing  to 
these  endowments  of  their  Catherine.  She  would 
not  accept  the  view  of  her  social  duty  which  re- 
quired her  to  marry  a  needy  nobleman  or  a  com- 
moner on  the  ladder  toward  nobility ;  and  they 
were  not  without  uneasiness  concerning  her  per- 
sistence in  declining  suitable  oifers.  As  to  the 
possibility  of  her  being  in  love  with  Klesmer  they 
were  not  at  all  uneasy — a  very  common  sort  of 
blindness.  For  in  general  mortals  have  a  great 
power  of  being  astonished  at  the  presence  of  an 
effect  toward  which  they  have  done  every  thing, 
and  at  the  absence  of  an  effect  toward  which  they 
have  done  nothing  but  desire  it.  Parents  are 
astonished  at  the  ignorance  of  their  sons,  though 
they  have  used  the  most  time-honored  and  expen- 


sive means  of  securing  it;  husbands  and  wives 
are  mutually  astonished  at  the  loss  of  affection 
which  they  have  taken  no  pains  to  keep  ;  and  all 
of  us  in  our  turn  are  apt  to  be  astonished  that 
our  neighbors  do  not  admire  us.  In  this  way  it 
happens  that  the  truth  seems  highly  improbable. 
The  truth  is  something  different  from  the  habit- 
ual lazy  combinations  begotten  by  our  wishes. 
The  Arrowpoints'  hour  of  astonishment  was  come. 

When  there  is  a  passion  between  an  heiress 
and  a  proud  independent-spirited  man,  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  them  to  come  to  an  understanding ;  but 
the  difficulties  are  likely  to  be  overcome  unless 
the  proud  man  secures  himself  by  a  constant 
alibi.  Brief  meetings  after  studied  absence  are 
potent  in  disclosure :  but  more  potent  still  is  fre- 
quent companionship,  with  full  sympathy  in  taste, 
and  admirable  qualities  on  both  sides ;  especially 
where  the  one  is  in  the  position  of  teacher  anil 
the  other  is  delightedly  conscious  of  receptive 
ability  which  also  gives  the  teacher  delight.  The 
situation  is  famous  in  history,  and  has  no  less 
charm  now  than  it  had  in  the  days  of  Abelard. 

But  this  kind  of  comparison  had  not  occurred 
to  the  Arrowpoints  when  they  first  engaged  Kles- 
mer to  come  down  to  Quetcham.  To  have  a  first- 
rate  musician  in  your  house  is  a.  privilege  of 
wealth ;  Catherine's  musical  talent  demanded 
every  advantage ;  and  she  particularly  desired  to 
use  her  quieter  time  in  the  country  for  more  thor- 
ough study.  Klesmer  was  not  yet  a  Liszt,  un- 
derstood to  be  adored  by  ladies  of  all  European 
countries  with  th*e  exception  of  Lapland :  and 
even  with  that  understanding  it  did  not  follow 
that  he  would  make  proposals  to  an  heiress.  No 
musician  of  honor  would  do  so.  Still  less  was  it 
conceivable  that  Catherine  would  give  him  the 
slightest  pretext  for  such  daring.  The  large 
check  that  Mr.  Arrowpoint  was  to  draw  in  Kles- 
mer's name  seemed' to  make  him  as  safe  an  in- 
mate as  a  footman.  Where  marriage  is  incon- 
ceivable, a  girl's  sentiments  are  safe. 

Klesmer  was  eminently  a  man  of  honor,  but 
marriages  rarely  begin  with  formal  proposals, 
and,  moreover,  Catherine's  limit  of  the  conceiva- 
ble did  not  exactly  correspond  with  her  mother's. 

Outsiders  might  have  been  more  apt  to  think 
that  Klesmer's  position  was  dangerous  for  him- 
self if  Miss  Arrowpoint  had  been  an  acknowl- 
edged beauty ;  not  taking  into  account  that  the 
most  powerful  of  all  beauty  is  that  which  reveals 
itself  after  sympathy  and  not  before  it.  There  is 
a  charm  of  eye  and  lip  which  comes  with  every 
little  phrase  that  certifies  delicate  perception  or 
fine  judgment,  with  every  unostentatious  word  or 
smile  that  shows  a  heart  awake  to  others ;  and  no 
sweep  of  garment  or  turn  of  figure  is  more  satis- 
fying than  that  which  enters  as  a  restoration  of 
confidence  that  one  person  is  present  on  whom  no 
intention  will  be  lost.  What  dignity  of  meaning 
goes  on  gathering  in  frowns  and  laughs  which  are 
never  observed  in  the  wrong  place;  what  suf- 
fused adorableness  in  a  human  frame  where  there 
is  a  mind  that  can  flash  out  comprehension  and 
hands  that  can  execute  finely  !  The  more  obvious 
beauty,  also  adorable  sometimes — one  may  say  it 
without  blasphemy — begins  by  being  an  apology 
for  folly,  and  ends,  like  other  apologies,  in  be- 
coming tiresome  by  iteration ;  and  that  Klesmer, 
though  very  susceptible  to  it,  should  have  a  pas- 
sionate attachment  to  Miss  Arrowpoint,  was  no 
more  a  paradox  than  any  other  triumph  of  a  mani- 


82 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


fold  sympathy  over  a  monotonous  attraction.  We 
object  less  to  be  taxed  with  the  enslaving  excess 
of  our  passions  than  with  our  deficiency  in  wider 
passion ;  but  if  the  truth  were  known,  our  reputed 
intensity  is  often  the  dullness  of  not  knowing 
what  else  to  do  with  ourselves.  Tannhauser,  one 
suspects,  was  a  knight  of  ill-furnished  imagina- 
tion, hardly  of  larger  discourse  than  a  heavy 
Guardsman ;  Merlin  had  certainly  seen  his  best 
days,  and  was  merely  repeating  himself,  when  he 
fell  into  that  hopeless  captivity ;  and  we  know 
that  Ulysses  felt  so  manifest  an  ennui  under  sim- 
ilar circumstances  that  Calypso  herself  furthered 
his  departure.  There  is,  indeed,  a  report  that  he 
afterward  left  Penelope ;  but  since  she  was  ha- 
bitually absorbed  in  worsted-work,  and  it  was 
probably  from  her  that  Telemachus  got  his  mean, 
pettifogging  disposition,  always  anxious  about  the 
property  and  the  daily  consumption  of  meat,  no 
inference  can  be  drawn  from  this  already  dubious 
scandal  as  to  the  relation  between  companionship 
and  constancy. 

Klesmer  was  as  versatile  and  fascinating  as  a 
young  Ulysses  on  a  sufficient  acquaintance — one 
whom  nature  seemed  to  have  first  made  generous- 
ly, and  then  to  have  added  music  as  a  dominant 
power  using  all  the  abundant  rest,  and,  as  in 
Mendelssohn,  finding  expression  for  itself  not 
only  in  the  highest  finish  of  execution,  but  in 
that  fervor  of  creative  work  and  theoretic  belief 
which  pierces  the  whole  future  of  a  life  with  the 
light  of  congruous,  devoted  purpose.  His  foibles 
of  arrogance  and  vanity  did  not  exceed  such  as 
may  be  found  in  the  best  English  families ;  and 
Catherine  Arrowpoint  had  no  corresponding  rest- 
lessness to  clash  with  his :  notwithstanding  her 
native  kindliness,  she  was  perhaps  too  coolly  firm 
and  self-sustained.  But  she  was  one  of  those 
satisfactory  creatures  whose  intercourse  has  the 
charm  of  discovery ;  whose  integrity  of  faculty 
and  expression  begets  a  wish  to  know  what  they 
will  say  on  all  subjects,  or  how  they  will  perform 
whatever  they  undertake ;  so  that  they  end  by 
raising  not  only  a  continual  expectation,  but  a 
continual  sense  of  fulfillment — the  systole  and  di- 
astole of  blissful  companionship.  In  such  cases 
the  outward  presentment  easily  becomes  what  the 
image  is  to  the  worshiper.  It  was  not  long  be- 
fore the  two  became  aware  that  each  was  interest- 
ing to  the  other ;  but  the  "  how  far"  remained  a 
matter  of  doubt.  Klesmer  did  not  conceive  that 
Miss  Arrowpoint  was  likely  to  think  of  him  as  a 
possible  lover,  and  she  was  not  accustomed  to 
think  of  herself  as  likely  to  stir  more  than  a 
friendly  regard,  or  to  fear  the  expression  of  more 
from  any  man  who  was  not  enamored  of  her  for- 
tune. Each  was  content  to  suffer  some  unshared 
sense  of  denial  for  the  sake  of  loving  the  other's 
society  a  little  too  well ;  and  under  these  condi- 
tions no  need  had  been  felt  to  restrict  Klesmer's 
visits  for  the  last  year  either  in  country  or  in 
town.  He  knew  very  well  that  if  Miss  Arrow- 
point  had  been  poor,  he  would  have  made  ardent 
love  to  her  instead  of  sending  a  storm  through 
the  piano,  or  folding  his  arms  and  pouring  out  a 
hyperbolical  tirade  about  something  as  imperson- 
al as  the  north  pole ;  and  she  was  not  less  aware 
that  if  it  had  been  possible  for  Klesmer  to  wish 
for  her  hand,  she  would  have  found  overmaster- 
ing reasons  for  giving  it  to  him.  Here  was  the 
safety  of  full  cups,  which  are  as  secure  from 
overflow  as  the  half  empty,  always  supposing  no 


disturbance.  Naturally,  silent  feeling  had  not 
remained  at  the  same  point  any  more  than  the 
stealthy  dial  hand,  and  in  the  present  visit  to 
Quctcham,  Klesmer  had  begun  to  think  that  he 
would  not  come  again ;  while  Catherine  was  more 
sensitive  to  his  frequent  brusqruerie,  which  she 
rather  resented  as  a  needless  effort  to  assert  his 
footing  of  superior  in  every  sense  except  the  con- 
ventional. 

Meanwhile  enters  the  expectant  peer,  Mr.  Bult, 
an  esteemed  party  man  who,  rather  neutral  in 
private  life,  had  strong  opinions  concerning  the 
districts  of  the  Niger,  was  much  at  home  also  in 
the  Brazils,  spoke  with  decision  of  affairs  in  the 
South  Seas,  was  studious  of  his  Parliamentary 
and  itinerant  speeches,  and  had  the  general  solid- 
ity and  suffusive  pinkness  of  a  healthy  Briton  on 
the  central  table-land  of  life.  Catherine,  aware 
of  a  tacit  understanding  that  he  was  an  undeni- 
able husband  for  an  heiress,  had  nothing  to  say 
against  him  but  that  he  was  thoroughly  tiresome 
to  her.  Mr.  Bult  was  amiably  confident,  and  had 
no  idea  that  his  insensibility  to  counterpoint  could 
ever  be  reckoned  against  him.  Klesmer  he  hard- 
ly regarded  in  the  light  of  a  serious  human  being 
who  ought  to  have  a  vote ;  and  he  did  not  mind 
Miss  Arrowpoint's  addiction  to  music  any  more 
than  her  probable  expenses  in  antique  lace.  He 
was  consequently  a  little  amazed  at  an  after- 
dinner  outburst  of  Klesmer's  on  the  lack  of  ideal- 
ism in  English  politics,  which  left  all  mutuality 
between  distant  races  to  be  determined  simply  by 
the  need  of  a  market :  the  crusades,  to  his  mind, 
had  at  least  this  excuse,  that  they  had  a  banner 
of  sentiment  round  which  generous  feelings  could 
rally:  of  course  the  scoundrels  rallied  too,  but 
what  then  V  they  rally  in  equal  force  round  your 
advertisement  van  of  "Buy  cheap,  sell  dear." 
On  this  theme  Klesmcr's  eloquence,  gesticulatory 
and  other,  went  on  for  a  little  while  like  stray 
fire-works  accidentally  ignited,  and  then  sank  into 
immovable  silence.  Mr.  Bult  was  not  surprised 
that  Klesmer's  opinions  should  be  flighty,  but  was 
astonished  at  his  command  of  English  idiom  and 
his  ability  to  put  a  point  in  a  way  that  would 
have  told  at  a  constituents'  dinner — to  be  ac- 
counted for  probably  by  his  being  a  Polo,  or  a 
Czech,  or  something  of  that  fermenting  sort,  in 
a  state  of  political  refugecism  which  had  obliged 
him  to  make  a  profession  of  his  music ;  and  that 
evening  in  the  drawing-room  he  for  the  first  time 
went  up  to  Klesmer  at  the  piano,  Miss  Arrow- 
point  being  near,  and  said, 

"  I  had  no  idea  before  that  you  were  a  political 
man." 

Klesmer's  only  answer  was  to  fold  his  arms, 
put  out  his  nether  lip,  and  stare  at  Mr.  Bult. 

"You  must  have  been  used  to  public  speak- 
ing. You  speak  uncommonly  well,  though  I  don't 
agree  with  you.  From  what  you  said  about  sen- 
timent, I  fancy  you  are  a  Panslavist." 

"  No ;  my  name  is  Elijah.  I  am  the  Wander- 
ing Jew,"  said  Klesmer,  flashing  a  smile  at  Miss 
Arrowpoint,  and  suddenly  making  a  mysterious 
wind-like  rush  backward  and  forward  on  the  pi- 
ano. Mr.  Bult  felt  this  buffoonery  rather  offen- 
sive and  Polish,  but— Miss  Arrowpoint  being  there 
— did  not  like  to  move  away. 

"  Herr  Klesmer  has  cosmopolitan  ideas,"  said 
Miss  Arrowpoint,  trying  to  make  the  best  of  the 
situation.  "He  looks  forward  to  a  fusion  of 
races." 


BOOK  HI— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


"  With  all  my  heart,"  said  Mr.  Bult,  willing  to 
be  gracious.  "  I  was  sure  he  had  too  much  talent 
to  be  a  mere  musician." 

"  Ah,  Sir,  you  are  under  some  mistake  there," 
said  Klesmer,  firing  up.  "  No  man  has  too  much 
talent  to  be  a  musician.  Most  men  have  too  lit- 
tle. A  creative  artist  is  no  more  a  mere  musi- 
cian than  a  great  statesman  is  a  mere  politician. 
We  are  not  ingenious  puppets,  Sir,  who  live  in  a 
box  and  look  out  on  the  world  only  when  it  is 
gaping  for  amusement.  We  help  to  rule  the  na- 
tions and  make  the  age  as  much  as  any  other  pub- 
lic men.  We  count  ourselves  on  level  benches 
with  legislators.  And  a  man  who  speaks  effect- 
ively through  music  is  compelled  to  something 
more  difficult  than  Parliamentary  eloquence." 

With  the  last  word  Klesmer  wheeled  from  the 
piano  and  walked  away. 

Miss  Arrowpoint  colored,  and  Mr.  Bult  ob- 
served, with  his  usual  phlegmatic  solidity,  "  Your 
pianist  does  not  think  small  beer  of  himself." 

"Herr  Klesmer  is  something  more  than  a 
pianist,"  said  Miss  Arrowpoint,  apologetically. 
"  He  is  a  great  musician  in  the  fullest  sense  of 
the  word.  He  will  rank  with  Schubert  and  Men- 
delssohn." 

"  Ah,  you  ladies  understand  these  things,"  said 
Mr.  Bult,  none  the  less  convinced  that  these  things 
were  frivolous  because  Klesmer  had  shown  him- 
self a  coxcomb. 

Catherine,  always  sorry  when  Klesmer  gave 
himself  airs,  found  an  opportunity  the  next  day  in 
the  music-room  to  say,  "  Why  were  you  so  heated 
last  night  with  Mr.  Bult  ?  He  meant  no  harm." 

"  You  wish  me  to  be  complaisant  to  him  ?"  said 
Klesmer,  rather  fiercely. 

"I  think  it  is  hardly  worth  your  while  to  be 
other  than  civil." 

"  You  find  no  difficulty  in  tolerating  him,  then  ? 
— you  have  a  respect  for  a  political  platitudinarian 
as  insensible  as  an  ox  to  every  thing  he  can't  turn 
into  political  capital.  You  think  his  monumental 
obtuseness  suited  to  the  dignity  of  the  English 
gentleman." 

"  I  did  not  say  that." 

"  You  mean  that  I  acted  without  dignity,  and 
you  are  offended  with  me." 

"  Now  you  are  slightly  nearer  the  truth,"  said 
Catherine,  smiling. 

"Then  I  had  better  put  my  burial-clothes  in 
my  portmanteau  and  set  off  at  once." 

"  I  don't  see  that.  If  I  have  to  bear  your  crit- 
icism of  my  operetta,  you  should  not  mind  my 
criticism  of  your  impatience." 

"  But  I  do  mind  it.  You  would  have  wished 
me  to  take  his  ignorant  impertinence  about  a 
'mere  musician'  without  letting  him  know  his 
place.  I  am  to  hear  my  gods  blasphemed  as  well 
as  myself  insulted.  But  I  beg  pardon.  It  is  im- 
possible you  should  see  the  matter  as  I  do.  Even 
you  can't  understand  the  wrath  of  the  artist :  he 
is  of  another  caste  for  you." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  Catherine,  with  some  be- 
trayal of  feeling.  "  He  is  of  a  caste  to  which  I 
look  up — a- caste  above  mine." 

Klesmer,  who  had  been  seated  at  a  table  look- 
ing over  scores,  started  up  and  walked  to  a  little 
distance,  from  which  he  said, 

"  That  is  finely  felt — I  am  grateful.  But  I  had 
better  go,  all  the  same.  I  have  made  up  my 
mind  to  go,  for  good  and  all.  You  can  get  on  ex- 
ceedingly well  without  me :  your  operetta  is  on 


wheels— it  will  go  of  itself.  And  your  Mr.  Bult's 
company  fits  me  '  wie  die  Faust  ins  Auge.'  I  am 
neglecting  my  engagements.  I  must  go  off  to  St. 
Petersburg." 

There  was  no  answer. 

"  You  agree  with  me  that  I  had  better  go  ?" 
said  Klesmer,  with  some  irritation. 

"  Certainly ;  if  that  is  what  your  business  and 
feeling  prompt.  I  have  only  to  wonder  that  you 
have  consented  to  give  us  so  much  of  your  time 
in  the  last  year.  There  must  be  treble  the  inter- 
est to  you  any  where  else.  I  have  never  thought 
of  your  consenting  to  come  here  as  any  thing  else 
than  a  sacrifice." 

"  Why  should  I  make  the  sacrifice  ?"  said  Kles- 
mer, going  to  seat  himself  at  the  piano,  and  touch- 
ing the  keys  so  as  to  give  with  the  delicacy  of  an 
echo  in  the  far  distance  a  melody  which  he  had 
set  to  Heine's  "  Ich  nab'  dich  geliebet  und  liebe 
dich  noch." 

"That  is  the  mystery,"  said  Catherine,  not 
wanting  to  affect  any  thing,  but  from  mere  agi- 
tation. From  the  same  cause  she  was  tearing  a 
piece  of  paper  into  minute  morsels,  as  if  at  a  task 
of  utmost  multiplication  imposed  by  a  cruel  fairy. 

"  You  can  conceive  no  motive  ?"  said  Klesmer, 
folding  his  arms. 

"  None  that  seems  in  the  least  probable." 

"  Then  I  shall  tell  you.  It  is  because  you  are 
to  me  the  chief  woman  in  the  world — the  throned 
lady  whose  colors  I  carry  between  my  heart  and 
my  armor." 

Catherine's  hands  trembled  so  much  that  she 
could  no  longer  tear  the  paper :  still  less  could 
her  lips  utter  a  word.  Klesmer  went  on : 

"  This  would  be  the  last  impertinence  in  me, 
if  I  meant  to  found  any  thing  upon  it.  That  is 
out  of  the  question.  I  mean  no  such  thing.  But 
you  once  said  it  was  your  doom  to  suspect  every 
man  who  courted  you  of  being  an  adventurer, 
and  what  made  you  angriest  was  men's  imputing 
to  you  the  folly  of  believing  that  they  courted 
you  for  your  own  sake.  Did  you  not  say  so  ?" 

"  Very  likely,"  was  the  answer,  in  a  low  murmur. 

"  It  was  a  bitter  word.  Well,  at  least  one  man 
who  has  seen  women  as  plenty  as  flowers  in  May 
has  lingered  about  you  for  your  own  sake.  And 
since  he  is  one  whom  you  can  never  marry,  you 
will  believe  him.  That  is  an  argument  in  favor 
of  some  other  man.  But  don't  give  yourself  for 


a  meal  to  a  minotaur  like  Bult.  I  shall  go  now 
and  pack.  I  shall  make  my  excuses  to  Mrs.  Ar- 
rowpoint." Klesmer  rose  as  he  ended,  and  M-alked 
quickly  toward  the  door. 

"  You  must  take  this  heap  of  manuscript,  then," 
said  Catherine,  suddenly  making  a  desperate  ef- 
fort. She  had  risen  to  fetch  the  heap  from  an- 
other table.  Klesmer  came  back,  and  they  had 
the  length  of  the  folio  sheets  between  them. 

"  Why  should  I  not  marry  the  mail  who  loves 
me,  if  I  love  him  ?"  said  Catherine.  To  her  the 
effort  was  something  like  the  leap  of  a  woman 
from  the  deck  into  the  life-boat. 

"  It  would  be  too  hard — impossible — you  could 
not  carry  it  through.  I  am  not  worth  what  you 
would  have  to  encounter.  I  will  not  accept  the 
sacrifice.  It  would  be  thought  a  misalliance  for 
you,  and  I  should  be  liable  to  the  worst  accusa- 
tions." 

"Is  it  the  accusations  you  are  afraid  of?  I 
am  afraid  of  nothing  but  that  we  should  miss 
the  passing  of  our  lives  together." 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


The  decisive  word  had  been  spoken:  there 
was  no  doubt  concerning  the  end  willed  by  each : 
there  only  remained  the  way  of  arriving  at  it, 
and  Catherine  determined  to  take  the  straightest 
possible.  She  went  to  her  father  and  mother  in 
the  library,  and  told  them  that  she  had  promised 
to  marry  Klesmer. 

Mrs.  Arrowpoint's  state  of  mind  was  pitiable. 
Imagine  Jean  Jacques,  after  his  essay  on  the  cor- 
rupting influence  of  the  arts,  waking  up  among 
children  of  nature  who  had  no  idea  of  grilling  the 
raw  bone  they  offered  him  for  breakfast  with  the 
primitive  convert  of  a  flint;  or  Saint  Just,  after 
fervidly  denouncing  all  recognition  of  pre-emi- 
nence, receiving  a  vote  of  thanks  for  the  unbrok- 
en mediocrity  of  his  speech,  which  warranted  the 
dullest  patriots  in  delivering  themselves  at  equal 
length.  Something  of  the  same  sort  befell  the 
authoress  of  "  Tasso,"  when  what  she  had  safely 
demanded  of  the  dead  Leonora  was  enacted  by 
her  own  Catherine.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  live  up 
to  our  own  eloquence,  and  keep  pace  with  our 
winged  words,  while  we  are  treading  the  solid 
earth  and  are  liable  to  heavy  dining.  Besides,  it 
has  long  been  understood  that  the  proprieties  of 
literature  are  not  those  of  practical  life.  Mrs. 
Arrowpoint  naturally  wished  for  the  best  of  ev- 
ery thing.  She  not  only  liked  to  feel  herself  at  a 
higher  level  of  literary  sentiment  than  the  ladies 
with  whom  she  associated ;  she  wished  not  to  be 
below  them  in  any  point  of  social  consideration. 
While  Klesmer  was  seen  in  the  light  of  a  patron- 
ized musician,  his  peculiarities  were  picturesque 
and  acceptable ;  but  to  see  him  by  a  sudden  flash 
in  the  light  of  her  son-in-law  gave  her  a  burning 
sense  of  what  the  world  would  say.  And  the 
poor  lady  had  been  used  to  represent  her  Cathe- 
rine as  a  model  of  excellence. 

Under  the  first  shock  she  forgot  every  thing 
but  her  anger,  and  snatched  at  any  phrase  that 
would  serve  as  a  weapon. 

"  If  Klesmer  has  presumed  to  offer  himself  to 
you,  your  father  shall  horsewhip  him  off  the  prem- 
ises. Pray,  speak,  Mr.  Arrowpoint." 

The  father  took  his  cigar  from  his  mouth,  and 
rose  to  the  occasion  by  saying,  "  This  will  never 
do,  Cath." 

"Do!"  cried  Mrs.  Arrowpoint ;  "who  in  their 
senses  ever  thought  it  would  do  ?  You  might  as 
well  say  poisoning  and  strangling  will  not  do. 
It  is  a  comedy  you  have  got  up,  Catherine.  Else 
you  are  mad." 

"I  am  quite  sane  and  serious,  mamma,  and 
Herr  Klesmer  is  not  to  blame.  He  never  thought 
of  my  marrying  him.  I  found  out  that  he  loved 
me,  and  loving  him,  I  told  him  I  would  marry 
him." 

"  Leave  that  unsaid,  Catherine,"  said  Mrs.  Ar- 
rowpoint, bitterly.  "Every  one  else  will  say  it 
for  you.  You  will  be  a  public  fable.  Every  one 
will  say  that  you  must  have  made  the  offer  to  a 
man  who  has  been  paid  to  come  to  the  house — 
who  is  nobody  knows  what — a  gypsy,  a  Jew,  a 
mere  bubble  of  the  earth." 

"  Never  mind,  mamma,"  said  Catherine,  indig- 
nant in  her  turn.  "  We  all  know  he  is  a  genius 
— as  Tasso  was." 

"  Those  times  were  not  these,  nor  ia  Klesmer 
Tasso,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  getting  more  heat- 
ed. "  There  is  no  sting  in  that  sarcasm,  except 
the  sting  of  undutifulness." 

"  I  am  sorry  to  hurt  you,  mamma.    But  I  will 


not  give  up  the  happiness  of  my  life  to  ideas  that 
I  don't  believe  in  and  customs  I  have  no  respect 
for." 

"  You  have  lost  all  sense  of  duty,  then  ?  You 
have  forgotten  that  you  are  our  only  child — that 
it  lies  with  you  to  place  a  great  property  in  the 
right  hands  ?" 

"  What  are  the  right  hands  ?  My  grandfather 
gained  the  property  in  trade." 

"  Mr.  Arrowpoint,  will  you  sit  by  and  hear  this 
without  speaking  ?" 

"  I  am  a  gentleman,  Cath.  We  expect  you  to 
marry  a  gentleman,"  said  the  father,  exerting 
himself. 

"And  a  man  connected  with  the  institutions 
of  this  country,"  said  the  mother.  "  A  woman 
in  your  position  has  serious  duties.  Where  duty 
and  inclination  clash,  she  must  follow  duty." 

"I  don't  deny  that,"  said  Catherine,  getting 
colder  in  proportion  to  her  mother's  heat.  "  But 
one  may  say  very  true  things  and  apply  them 
falsely.  People  can  easily  take  the  sacred  word 
duty  as  a  name  for  what  they  desire  any  one  else 
to  do." 

"  Your  parents'  desire  makes  no  duty  for  you, 
then  ?" 

"  Yes,  within  reason.  But  before  I  give  up  the 
happiness  of  my  life — " 

"  Catherine,  Catherine,  it  will  not  be  your  hap- 
piness," said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  in  her  most  raven- 
like  tones. 

"  Well,  what  seems  to  me  my  happiness — be- 
fore I  give  it  up,  I  must  see  some  better  reason 
than  the  wish  that  I  should  marry  a  nobleman, 
or  a  man  who  votes  with  a  party,  that  he  may  be 
turned  into  a  nobleman.  I  feel  at  liberty  to  mar- 
ry the  man  I  love  and  think  worthy,  unless  some 
higher  duty  forbids." 

"And  so  it  does,  Catherine,  though  you  are 
blinded  and  can  not  see  it.  It  is  a  woman's  duty 
not  to  lower  herself.  You  are  lowering  yourself. 
Mr.  Arrowpoint,  will  you  tell  your  daughter  what 
is  her  duty  ?" 

"  You  must  see,  Catherine,  that  Klesmer  is  not 
the  man  for  you,"  said  Mr.  Arrowpoint.  "He 
won't  do  at  the  head  of  estates.  He  has  a  deuced 
foreign  look — is  an  unpractical  man." 

'  I  really  can't  see  what  that  has  to  do  with 
it,  papa.  The  land  of  England  has  often  passed 
into  the  hands  of  foreigners — Dutch  soldiers,  sons 
of  foreign  women  of  bad  character :  if  our  land 
were  sold  to-morrow,  it  would  very  likely  pass  into 
the  hands  of  some  foreign  merchant  on  'Change. 
It  is  in  every  body's  mouth  that  successful  swin- 
dlers may  buy  up  half  the  land  in  the  country. 
How  can  I  stem  that  tide  ?" 

"It  will  never  do  to  argue  about  marriage, 
Cath,"  said  Mr.  Arrowpoint.  "  It's  no  use  get- 
ting up  the  subject  like  a  Parliamentary  ques- 
tion. We  must  do  as  other  people  do.  We  must 
think  of  the  nation  and  the  public  good." 

1 1  can't  see  any  public  good  concerned  here, 
papa,"  said  Catherine.-  "  Why  is  it  to  be  expect- 
ed of  an  heiress  that  she  should  carry  the  prop- 
erty gained  in  trade  into  the  hands  of  a  certain 
class  ?  That  seems  to  me  a  ridiculous  mish-mash 
of  superannuated  customs  and  false  ambition.  I 
should  call  it  a  public  evil.  People  had  better 
make  a  new  sort  of  public  good  by  changing  their 
ambitions." 

1  That  is  mere  sophistry,  Catherine,"  said  Mrs. 
Arrowpoint.  "  Because  you  don't  wish  to  marry 


BOOK  HI— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


a  nobleman,  you  are  not  obliged  to  marry  a  mount- 
ebank or  a  charlatan." 

"  I  can  not  understand  the  application  of  such 
words,  mamma." 

"  No,  I  dare  say  not,"  rejoined  Mrs.  Arrow- 
point,  with  significant  scorn.  "  You  have  got  to 
a  pitch  at  which  we  are  not  likely  to  understand 
each  other." 

"  It  can't  be  done,  Cath,"  said  Mr.  Arrowpoint, 
wishing  to  substitute  a  better-humored  reasoning 
for  his  wife's  impetuosity.  "A  man  like  Klesmer 
can't  marry  such  a  property  as  yours.  It  can't 
be  done." 

"It  certainly  will  not  be  done,"  said  Mrs.  Ar- 
rowpoint, imperiously.  "Where  is  the  man? 
Let  him  be  fetched." 

"  I  can  not  fetch  him  to  be  insulted,"  said  Cath- 
erine. "  Nothing  will  be  achieved  by  that." 

"  I  suppose  you  would  wish  him  to  know  that 
in  marrying  you  he  will  not  marry  your  fortune," 
said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint. 

"  Certainly ;  if  it  were  so,  I  should  wish  him  to 
know  it." 

"  Then  you  had  better  fetch  him." 

Catherine  only  went  into  the  music-room  and 
said,  "  Come :"  she  felt  no  need  to  prepare  Kles- 
mer. 

"  Herr  Klesmer,"  said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  with  a 
rather  contemptuous  stateliness,  "it  is  unneces- 
sary to  repeat  what  has  passed  between  us  and 
our  daughter.  Mr.  Arrowpoint  will  tell  you  our 
resolution." 

"  Your  marrying  is  quite  out  of  the  question," 
said  Mr.  Arrowpoint,  rather  too  heavily  weighted 
with  his  task,  and  standing  in  an  embarrassment 
unrelieved  by  a  cigar.  "  It  is  a  wild  scheme  al- 
together. A  man  has  been  called  out  for  less." 

"  You  have  taken  a  base  advantage  of  our  con- 
fidence," burst  in  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  unable  to 
carry  out  her  purpose  and  leave  the  burden  of 
speech  to  her  husband. 

Klesmer  made  a  low  bow  in  silent  irony. 

"The  pretension  is  ridiculous.  You  had  bet- 
ter give  it  up  and  leave  the  house  at  once,"  con- 
tinued Mr.  Arrowpoint  He  wished  to  do  with- 
out mentioning  the  money. 

"  I  can  give  up  nothing  without  reference  to 
your  daughter's  wish,"  said  Klesmer.  "My  en- 
gagement is  to  her." 

"It  is  useless  to  discuss  the  question,"  said 
Mrs.  Arrowpoint.  "  We  shall  never  consent  to 
the  marriage.  If  Catherine  disobeys  us,  we  shall 
disinherit  her.  You  will  not  marry  her  fortune. 
It  is  right  you  should  know  that." 

"  Madam,  her  fortune  has  been  the  only  thing 
I  have  had  to  regret  about  her.  But  I  must  ask 
her  if  she  will  not  think  the  sacrifice  greater 
than  I  am  worthy  of." 

"  It  is  no  sacrifice  to  me,"  said  Catherine,  "  ex- 
cept that  I  am  sorry  to  hurt  my  father  and  moth- 
er. I  have  always  felt  my  fortune  to  be  a  wretch- 
ed fatality  of  my  life." 

"You  mean  to  defy  us,  then?"  said  Mrs.  Ar- 
rowpoint. 

"  I  mean  to  marry  Herr  Klesmer,"  said  Cath- 
erine, firmly. 

"He  had  better  not  count  on  our  relenting," 
said  Mrs.  Arrowpoint,  whose  manners  suffered 
from  that  impunity  in  insult  which  has  been 
reckoned  among  the  privileges  of  women. 

"  Madam,"  said  Klesmer,  "  certain  reasons  for- 
bid me  to  retort.  But  understand  that  I  consider 


it  out  of  the  power  either  of  you  or  of  your  for- 
tune to  confer  on  me  any  thing  that  I  value. 
My  rank  as  an  artist  is  of  my  own  winning,  and  I 
would  not  exchange  it  for  any  other.  I  am  able 
to  maintain  your  daughter,  and  I  ask  for  no 
change  in  my  life  but  her  companionship." 

"You  will  leave  the  house,  however,"  said 
Mrs.  Arrowpoint. 

"I  go  at  once,"  said  Klesmer,  bowing  and 
quitting  the  room. 

"  Let  there  be  no  misunderstanding,  mamma," 
said  Catherine;  "I  consider  myself  engaged  to 
Herr  Klesmer,  and  I  intend  to  marry  him." 

The  mother  turned  her  head  away  and  waved 
her  hand  in  sign  of  dismissal. 

"  It's  all  very  fine,"  said  Mr.  Arrowpoint,  when 
Catherine  was  gone;  "but  what  the  deuce  are 
we  to  do  with  the  property  ?" 

"  There  is  Harry  Brendall.  He  can  take  the 
name." 

"  Harry  Brendall  will  get  through  it  all  in  no 
time,"  said  Mr.  Arrowpoint,  relighting  his  cigar. 

And  thus,  with  nothing  settled  but  the  determi- 
nation of  the  lovers,  Klesmer  had  left  Quetcham. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Among  the  heirs  of  Art,  as  at  the  division  of  the 
promised  land,  each  has  to  win  his  portion  by  hard 
fighting:  the  bestowal  is  after  the  manner  of  prophe- 
cy, and  is  a  title  without  possession.  To  carry  the 
map  of  an  ungotten  estate  in  your  pocket  is  a  poor 
sort  of  copyhold.  And  in  fancy  to  cast  his  shoe  over 
Edom  is  little  warrant  that  a  man  shall  ever  set  the 
sole  of  his  foot  on  an  acre  of  his  own  there. 

The  most  obstinate  beliefs  that  mortals  entertain 
about  themselves  are  such  as  they  have  no  evidence 
for  beyond  a  constant,  spontaneous  pulsing  of  their 
self-satisfaction— as  it  were  a  hidden  seed  of  madness, 
a  confidence  that  they  can  move  the  world  without 
precise  notion  of  standing-place  or  lever. 

"  PRAY  go  to  church,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen, 
the  next  morning.  "  I  prefer  seeing  Herr  Kles- 
mer alone."  (He  had  written  in  reply  to  her  note 
that  he  would  be  with  her  at  eleven.) 

"That  is  hardly  correct,  I  think,"  said  Mrs. 
Davilow,  anxiously. 

"Our  affairs  are  too  serious  for  us  to  think 
of  such  nonsensical  rules,"  said  Gwendolen,  con- 
temptuously. "They  are  insulting  as  well  as 
ridiculous." 

"  You  would  not  mind  Isabel  sitting  with  you  ? 
She  would  be  reading  in  a  corner." 

"  No,  she  could  not :  she  would  bite  her  nails 
and  stare.  It  would  be  too  irritating.  Trust  my 
judgment,  mamma.  I  must  be  alone.  Take  them 
all  to  church." 

Gwendolen  had  her  way,  of  course ;  only  that 
Miss  Merry  and  two  of  the  girls  staid  at  home 
to  give  the  house  a  look  of  habitation  by  sitting 
at  the  dining-room  windows. 

It  was  a  delicious  Sunday  morning.  The  mel- 
ancholy waning  sunshine  of  autumn  rested  on  the 
leaf-strown  grass  and  came  mildly  through  the 
windows  in  slanting  bands  of  brightness  over  the 
old  furniture,  and  the  glass  panel  that  reflected 
the  furniture ;  over  the  tapestried  chairs  with 
their  faded  flower  wreaths,  the  dark  enigmatic 
pictures,  the  superannuated  organ  at  which  Gwen- 
dolen had  pleased  herself  with  acting  Saint  Ce- 
cilia on  her  first  joyous  arrival,  the  crowd  of  .pair 
lid,  dusty  knickknacks  seen  through  the  open 
doors  of  the  antechamber  where  she  had  achieved 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


the  wearing  of  her  Greek  dress  as  Hermione. 
This  last  memory  was  just  now  very  busy  in  her ; 
for  had  not  Klesmer  then  been  struck  with  ad- 
miration of  her  pose  and  expression  ?  Whatever 
he  had  said,  whatever  she  imagined  him  to  have 
thought,  was  at  this  moment  pointed  with  keen- 
est interest  for  her :  perhaps  she  had  never  be- 
fore in  her  life  felt  so  inwardly  dependent,  so 
consciously  in  need  of  another  person's  opinion. 
There  was  a  new  fluttering  of  spirit  within  her,  a 
new  element  of  deliberation  in  her  self-estimate, 
which  had  hitherto  been  a  blissful  gift  of  intui- 
tion. Still  it  was  the  recurrent  burden  of  her  in- 
ward soliloquy  that  Klesmer  had  seen  but  little 
of  her,  and  any  unfavorable  conclusion  of  his 
must  have  too  narrow  a  foundation.  She  really 
felt  clever  enough  for  any  thing. 

To  fill  up  the  time,  she  collected  her  volumes 
and  pieces  of  music,  and  laying  them  on  the  top 
of  the  piano,  set  herself  to  classify  them.  Then 
catching  the  reflection  of  her  movements  in  the 
glass  panel,  she  was  diverted  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  image  there,  and  walked  toward  it. 
Dressed  in  black  without  a  single  ornament,  and 
with  the  warm  whiteness  of  her  skin  set  off  be- 
tween her  light  brown  coronet  of  hair  and  her 
square-cut  bodice,  she  might  have  tempted  an 
artist  to  try  again  the  Roman  trick  of  a  statue  in 
black,  white,  and  tawny  marble.  Seeing  her  im- 
age slowly  advancing,  she  thought,  "I  am  beau- 
tiful"— not  exultingly,  but  with  grave  decision. 
Being  beautiful  was,  after  all,  the  condition  on 
which  she  most  needed  external  testimony.  If 
any  one  objected  to  the  turn  of  her  nose  or  the 
form  of  her  neck  and  chin,  she  had  not  the  sense 
that  she  could  presently  show  her  power  of  at- 
tainment in  these  branches  of  feminine  perfection. 

There  was  not  much  time  to  fill  up  in  this  way 
before  the  sound  of  wheels,  the  loud  ring,  and  the 
opening  doors  assured  her  that  she  was  not  by 
any  accident  to  be  disappointed.  This  slightly 
increased  her  inward  flutter.  In  spite  of  her  self- 
confidence,  she  dreaded  Klesmer  as  part  of  that 
unmanageable  world  which  was  independent  of 
her  wishes — something  vitriolic,  that  would  not 
cease  to  burn  because  you  smiled  or  frowned  at 
it.  Poor  thing !  she  was  at  a  higher  crisis  of  her 
woman's  fate  than  in  her  past  experience  with 
Grandcourt.  The  questioning  then  was  whether 
she  should  take  a  particular  man  as  a  husband. 
The  inmost  fold  of  her  questioning  now  was  wheth- 
er she  need  take  a  husband  at  all — whether  she 
could  not  achieve  substantiality  for  herself  and 
know  gratified  ambition  without  bondage. 

Klesmer  made  his  most  deferential  bow  in  the 
wide  doorway  of  the  antechamber — showing  also 
the  deference  of  the  finest  gray  kersevmere  trow- 
sers  and  perfect  gloves  (the  "  masters  of  those  who 
know"  are  happily  altogether  human).  Gwen- 
dolen met  him  with  unusual  gravity,  and  holding 
out  her  hand,  said,  "  It  is  most  kind  of  you  to 
come,  Herr  Klesmer.  I  hope  you  have  not  thought 
me  presumptuous." 

"  I  took  your  wish  as  a  command  that  did  me 
honor,"  said  Klesmer,  with  answering  gravity. 
He  was  really  putting  by  his  own  affairs  in  order 
to  give  his  utmost  attention  to  what  Gwendolen 
might  have  to  say ;  but  his  temperament  was  still 
in  a  state  of  excitation  from  the  events  of  yester- 
day likely  enough  to  give  his  expressions  a  more 
than  usually  biting  edge. 

Gwendolen  for  once  was  under  too  great  a 


strain  of  feeling  to  remember  formalities.  She 
continued  standing  near  the  piano,  and  Klesmer 
took  his  stand  at  the  other  end  of  it,  with  his 
back  to  the  light  and  his  terribly  omniscient  eyes 
upon  her.  No  affectation  was  of  use,  and  she  be- 
gan without  delay. 

"  I  wish  to  consult  you,  Herr  Klesmer.  We 
have  lost  all  our  fortune;  we  have  nothing.  I 
must  get  my  own  bread,  and  I  desire  to  provide 
for  my  mamma,  so  as  to  save  her  from  any  hard- 
ship. The  only  way  I  can  think  of — and  I  should 
like  it  better  than  any  thing — is  to  be  an  actress 
— to  go  on  the  stage.  But  of  course  I  should 
like  to  take  a  high  position,  and  I  thought — if 
you  thought  I  could" — here  Gwendolen  became  a 
little  more  nervous — "  it  would  be  better  for  me 
to  be  a  singer — to  study  singing  also." 

Klesmer  put  down  his  hat  on  the  piano,  and 
folded  his  arms  as  if  to  concentrate  himself. 

"I  know,"  Gwendolen  resumed,  turning  from 
pale  to  pink  and  back  again — "  I  know  that  my 
method  of  singing  is  very  defective;  but  I  have 
been  ill  taught.  I  could  be  better  taught ;  I  could 
study.  And  you  will  understand  my  wish :  to 
sing  and  act  too,  like  Grisi,  is  a  much  higher  po- 
sition. Naturally,  I  should  wish  to  take  as  high 
a  rank  as  I  can.  And  I  can  rely  on  your  judg- 
ment. I  am  sure  you  will  tell  me  the  truth." 

Gwendolen  somehow  had  the  conviction  that, 
now  she  made  this  serious  appeal,  the  truth  would 
be  favorable. 

Still  Klesmer  did  not  speak.  He  drew  off  hia 
gloves  quickly,  tossed  them  into  his  hat,  rested 
his  hands  on  his  hips,  and  walked  to  the  other 
end  of  the  room.  He  was  filled  with  compassion 
for  this  girl :  he  wanted  to  put  a  guard  on  his 
speech.  When  he  turned  again,  he  looked  at  her 
with  a  mild  frown  of  inquiry,  and  said  with  gen- 
tle though  quick  utterance,  "You  have  never 
seen  any  thing,  I  think,  of  artists  and  their  lives  ? 
— I  mean  of  musicians,  actors,  artists  of  that 
kind  ?" 

"  Oh  no,"  said  Gwendolen,  'not  perturbed  by  a 
reference  to  this  obvious  fact  in  the  history  of  a 
young  lady  hitherto  well  provided  for. 

"  You  are — pardon  me,"  said  Klesmer,  again 
pausing  near  the  piano — "  in  coming  to  a  conclu- 
sion on  such  a  matter  as  this,  every  thing  must 
be  taken  into  consideration — you  are  perhaps 
twenty  ?" 

"I  am  twenty-one,"  said  Gwendolen,  a  slight 
fear  rising  hi  her.  "Do  you  think  I  am  too 
old?" 

Klesmer  pouted  his  under-lip  and  shook  hia 
long  fingers  upward  in  a  manner  totally  enig- 
matic. 

"  Many  persons  begin  later  than  others,"  said 
Gwendolen,  betrayed  by  her  habitual  conscious- 
ness  of  having  valuable  information  to  bestow. 

Klesmer  took  no  notice,  but  said,  with  more 
studied  gentleness  than  ever,  "  You  have  proba- 
bly not  thought  of  an  artistic  career  until  now : 
you  did  not  entertain  the  notion,  the  longing — 
what  shall  I  say  ? — you  did  not  wish  yourself  an 
actress,  or  any  thing  of  that  sort,  till  the  present 
trouble  ?" 

"Not  exactly;  but  I  was  fond  of  acting.  I 
have  acted ;  you  saw  me,  if  you  remember — you 
saw  me  here  in  charades  and  as  Hermione,"  said 
Gwendolen,  really  fearing  that  Klesmer  had  for- 
gotten. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  answered,  quickly,  "  I  remem- 


BOOK  IE.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


87 


her — I  remember'  perfectly,"  and  again  walked 
to  the  other  end  of  the  room.  It  was  difficult 
for  him  to  refrain  from  this  kind  of  movement 
when  he  was  in  any  argument  either  audible  or 
silent. 

Gwendolen  felt  that  she  was  being  weighed. 
The  delay  was  unpleasant.  But  she  did  not  yet 
conceive  that  the  scale  could  dip  on  the  wrong 
side,  and  it  seemed  to  her  only  graceful  to  say, 
"  I  shall  be  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  taking 
the  trouble  to  give  me  your  advice,  whatever  it 
may  be." 

"  Miss  Harleth,"  said  Klesmer,  turning  toward 
her,  and  speaking  with  a  slight  increase  of  accent, 
"  I  will  veil  nothing  from  you  in  this  matter.  I 
should  reckon  myself  guilty  if  I  put  a  false  vis- 
age on  things — made  them  too  black  or  too  white. 
The  gods  have  a  curse  for  him  who  willingly  tells 
another  the  wrong  road.  And  if  I  misled  one 
who  is  so  young,  so  beautiful,  who,  I  trust,  will 
find  her  happiness  along  the  right  road,  I  should 
regard  myself  as  a — EoseuticfU."  In  the  last  word 
Klesmer's  voice  had  dropped  to  a  loud  whisper. 

Gwendolen  felt  a  sinking  of  heart  under  this 
unexpected  solemnity,  and  kept  a  sort  of  fasci- 
nated gaze  on  Klesmer's  face,  while  he  went  on : 

"  You  are  a  beautiful  young  lady — you  have 
been  brought  up  in  ease — you  have  done  what 
you  would — you  have  not  said  to  yourself, '  I  must 
know  this  exactly,'  'I  must  understand  this  ex- 
actly,' 'I  must  do  this  exactly.'"  In  uttering 
these  three  terrible  mwts,  Klesmer  lifted  up  three 
long  fingers  in  succession.  "  In  sum,  you  have 
not  been  called  upon  to  be  any  thing  but  a  charm- 
ing young  lady,  whom  it  is  an  impoliteness  to  find 
fault  with." 

He  paused  an  instant ;  then  resting  his  fingers 
on  his  hips  again,  and  thrusting  out  his  powerful 
chin,  he  said : 

"  Well,  then,  with  that  preparation,  you  wish 
to  try  the  life  of  the  artist ;  you  wish  to  try  a 
life  of  arduous,  unceasing  work,  and — uncertain 
praise.  Your  praise  would  have  to  be  earned, 
like  your  bread;  and  both  would  come  slowly, 
scantily — what  do  I  say? — they  might  hardly 
come  at  all." 

This  tone  of  discouragement,  which  Klesmer 
half  hoped  might  suffice  without  any  thing  more 
unpleasant,  roused  some  resistance  in  Gwendolen. 
With  a  slight  turn  of  her  head  away  from  him, 
and  an  air  of  pique,  she  said : 

"I  thought  that  you,  being  an  artist,  would 
consider  the  life  one  of  the  most  honorable  and 
delightful.  And  if  I  can  do  nothing  better  ? — I 
suppose  I  can  put  up  with  the  same  risks  as  oth- 
er people  do." 

"Do  nothing  better?"  said  Klesmer,  a  little 
fired.  "  No,  my  dear  Miss  Harleth,  you  could  do 
nothing  better — neither  man  nor  woman  could  do 
any  thing  better — if  you  could  do  what  was  best 
or  good  of  its  kind.  I  am  not  decrying  the  life 
of  the  true  artist.  I  am  exalting  it.  I  say  it  is 
out  of  the  reach  of  any  but  choice  organizations 
— natures  framed  to  love  perfection  and  to  labor 
for  it ;  ready,  like  all  true  lovers,  to  endure,  to 
wait,  to  say,  I  am  not  yet  worthy,  but  she — Art, 
my  mistress — is  worthy,  and  I  will  live  to  merit 
her.  An  honorable  life?  Yes.  But  the  honor 
comes  from  the  inward  vocation  and  the  hard- 
won  achievement :  there  is  no  honor  in  donning 
the  life  as  a  livery." 
Some  excitement  of  yesterday  had  revived  in 


Klesmer  and  hurried  him  into  speech  a  little 
aloof  from  his  immediate  friendly  purpose.  He 
had  wished  as  delicately  as  possible  to  rouse  in 
Gwendolen  a  sense  of  her  unfitness  for  a  perilous, 
difficult  course ;  but  it  was  his  wont  to  be  angry 
with  the  pretensions  of  incompetence,  and  he 
was  in  danger  of  getting  chafed.  Conscious  of 
this,  he  paused  suddenly.  But  Gwendolen's  chief 
impression  was  that  he  had  not  yet  denied  her 
the  power  of  doing  what  would  be  good  of  its 
kind.  Klesmer's  'fervor  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of 
glamour  such  as  he  was  prone  to  throw  over  things 
in  general ;  and  what  she  desired  to  assure  bun 
of  was  that  she  was  not  afraid  of  some  prelimi- 
nary hardships.  The  belief  that  to  present  her- 
self in  public  on  the  stage  must  produce  an  effect 
such  as  she  had  been  used  to  feel  certain  of  in 
private  life,  was  like  a  bit  of  her  flesh — it  was 
not  to  be  peeled  off  readily,  but  must  come  with 
blood  and  pain.  She  said,  in  a  tone  of  some  in- 
sistence : 

"I  am  quite  prepared  to  bear  hardships  at 
first.  Of  course  no  one  can  become  celebrated 
all  at  once.  And  it  is  not  necessary  that  every 
one  should  be  first-rate — either  actresses  or  sing- 
ers. If  you  would  be  so  kind  as  to  tell  me  what 
steps  I  should  take,  I  should  have  the  courage  to 
take  them.  I  don't  mind  going  up  hill.  It  will 
be  easier  than  the  dead  level  of  being  a  governess. 
I  will  take  any  steps  you  recommend." 

Klesmer  was  more  convinced  now  that  he  must 
speak  plainly. 

'I  will  tell  you  the  steps,  not  that  I  recom- 
mend, but  that  will  be  forced  upon  you.  It  is  all 
one,  so  far,  what  your  goal  may  be — excellence, 
celebrity,  second,  third  rateness— it  is  all  one. 
You  must  go  to  town  under  the  protection  of 
your  mother.  You  must  put  yourself  under 
training  —  musical,  dramatic,  theatrical :  what- 
ever you  desire  to  do,  you  have  to  learn" — here 
Gwendolen  looked  as  if  she  were  going  to  speak, 
but  Klesmer  lifted  up  his  hand  and  said  decisive- 
ly, "  I  know.  You  have  exercised  your  talents — 
you  recite — you  sing — from  the  drawing-room 
'Standpunkt.  My  dear  Fraulein,  you  must  unlearn 
all  that.  You  have  not  yet  conceived  what  ex- 
cellence is :  you  must  unlearn  your  mistaken  ad- 
mirations. You  must  know  what  you  have  to 
strive  for,  and  then  you  must  subdue  your  mind 
and  body  to  unbroken  discipline.  Your  mind,  I 
say.  For  you  must  not  be  thinking  of  celebrity: 
— put  that  candle  out  of  your  eyes,  and  look  only 
at  excellence.  You  would,  of  course,  earn  noth- 
ing— you  could  get  no  engagement  for  a  long 
while.  You  would  need  money  for  yourself  and 
your  family.  But  that,"  here  Klesmer  frowned 
and  shook  his  fingers  as  if  to  dismiss  a  triviality 
— "  that  could  perhaps  be  found." 

Gwendolen  turned  pink  and  pale  during  this 
speech.  Her  pride  had  felt  a  terrible  knife  edge, 
and  the  last  sentence  only  made  the  smart  keen- 
er. She  was  conscious  of  appearing  moved,  and 
tried  to  escape  from  her  weakness  by  suddenly 
walking  to  a  seat  and  pointing  out  a  chair  to 
Klesmer.  He  did  not  take  it,  but  turned  a  little 
in  order  to  face  her,  and  leaned  against  the  piano. 
At  that  moment  she  wished  that  she  had  not  sent 
for  him :  this  first  experience  of  being  taken  on 
some  other  ground  than  that  of  her  social  rank 
and  her  beauty  was  becoming  bitter  to  her.  Kles- 
mer, preoccupied  with  a  serious  purpose,  went  on 
without  change  of  tone. 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"Now,  what  sort  of  issue  might  be  fairly  ex- 
pected from  all  this  self-denial  ?  You  would  ask 
that.  It  is  right  that  your  eyes  should  be  open 
to  it.  I  will  tell  you  truthfully.  The  issue  would 
be  uncertain  and — most  probably — would  not  be 
worth  much." 

At  these  relentless  words  Klesmer  put  out  his 
lip  and  looked  through  his  spectacles  with  the 
air  of  a  monster  impenetrable  by  beauty. 

Gwendolen's  eyes  began  to  burn,  but  the  dread 
of  showing  weakness  urged  her  to  added  self-con- 
trol. She  compelled  herself  to  say,  in  a  hard 
tone, 

"  You  think  I  want  talent,  or  am  too  old  to 
begin." 

Klesmer  made  a  sort  of  hum  and  then  descend- 
ed on  an  emphatic  "  Yea !  The  desire  and  the 
training  should  have  begun  seven  years  ago — or 
a  good  deal  earlier.  A  mountebank's  child  who 
helps  her  father  to  earn  shillings  when  she  is  six 
years  old — a  child  that  inherits  a  singing  throat 
from  a  long  line  of  choristers,  and  learns  to  sing 
as  it  learns  to  talk,  has  a  likelier  beginning.  Any 
great  achievement  in  acting  or  in  music  grows 
with  the  growth.  Whenever  an  artist  has  been 
able  to  say,  '  I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered,'  it  has 
been  at  the  end  of  patient  practice.  Genius  at 
first  is  little  more  than  a  great  capacity  for  re- 
ceiving discipline.  Singing  and  acting,  like  the 
fine  dexterity  of  the  juggler  with  his  cups  and 
balls,  require  a  shaping  of  the  organs  toward  a 
finer  and  finer  certainty  of  effect.  Your  muscles 
— your  whole  frame — must  go  like  a  watch,  true, 
true,  true,  to  a  hair.  That  is  the  work  of  spring- 
time, before  habits  have  been  determined." 

"  I  did  not  pretend  to  genius,"  said  Gwendolen, 
still  feeling  that  she  might  somehow  do  what 
Klesmer  wanted  to  represent  as  impossible.  "  I 
only  supposed  that  I  might  have  a  little  talent — 
enough  to  improve." 

"  I  don't  deny  that,"  said  Klesmer.  "  If  you 
had  been  put  in  the  right  track  some  years  ago 
and  had  worked  well,  you  might  now  have  made 
a  public  singer,  though  I  don't  think  your  voice 
would  have  counted  for  much  in  public.  For  the 
stage  your  personal  charms  and  intelligence  might 
then  have  told  without  the  present  drawback  of 
inexperience — lack  of  disciph'ne — lack  of  instruc- 
tion." 

Certainly  Klesmer  seemed  cruel,  but  his  feeling 
was  the  reverse  of  cruel.  Our  speech,  even  when 
we  are  most  single-minded,  can  never  take  its  line 
absolutely  from  one  impulse ;  but  Klesmer's  was 
as  far  as  possible  directed  by  compassion  for 
poor  Gwendolen's  ignorant  eagerness  to  enter  on 
a  course  of  which  he  saw  all  the  miserable  details 
with  a  definiteness  which  he  could  not  if  he  would 
have  conveyed  to  her  mind. 

Gwendolen,  however,  was  not  convinced.  Her 
self -opinion  rallied,  and  since  the  counselor  whom 
*he  had  called  in  gave  a  decision  of  such  severe 
pcremptoriness,  she  was  tempted  to  think  that 
his  judgment  was  not  only  fallible,  but  biased. 
It  occurred  to  her  that  a  simpler  and  wiser  step 
for  her  to  have  taken  would  have  been  to  send  a 
letter  through  the  post  to  the  manager  of  a  Lon- 
don theatre,  asking  him  to  make  an  appointment. 
She  would  make  no  further  reference  to  her  sing- 
ing: Klesmer,  she  saw,  had  set  himself  against 
her  singing.  But  she  felt  equal  to  arguing  with 
him  about  her  going  on  the  stage,  and  she  an- 
swered in  a  resistant  tone: 


"  I  understand,  of  course,  that  no  one  can  be  a 
finished  actress  at  once.  It  may  be  impossible 
to  tell  beforehand  whether  I  should  succeed ;  but 
that  seems  to  me  a  reason  why  I  should  try.  I 
should  have  thought  that  I  might  have  taken  an 
engagement  at  a  theatre  meanwhile,  so  as  to  earn 
money  and  study  at  the  same  time." 

"  Can't  be  done,  my  dear  Miss  Harleth — I  speak 
plainly — it  can't  be  done.  I  must  clear  your  mind 
of  these  notions,  which  have  no  more  resemblance 
to  reality  than  a  pantomime.  Ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen think  that  when  they  have  made  their 
toilet  and  drawn  on  their  gloves,  they  are  as  pre- 
sentable on  the  stage  as  in  a  drawing-room.  No 
manager  thinks  that.  With  all  your  grace  and 
charm,  if  you  were  to  present  yourself  as  an  as- 
pirant to  the  stage,  a  manager  would  either  re- 
quire you  to  pay  as  an  amateur  for  being  allowed 
to  perform,  or  he  would  tell  you  to  go  and  be 
taught — trained  to  bear  yourself  on  the  stage,  as 
a  horse,  however  beautiful,  must  be  trained  for 
the  circus ;  to  say  nothing  of  that  study  which 
would  enable  you  to  personate  a  character  con- 
sistently, and  animate  it  with  the  natural  language 
of  face,  gesture,  and  tone.  For  you  to  get  an  en- 
gagement fit  for  you  straight  away  is  out  of  the 
question." 

"  I  really  can  not  understand  that,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, rather  haughtily ;  then,  checking  herself, 
she  added,  in  another  tone,  "  I  shall  be  obliged  to 
you  if  you  will  explain  how  it  is  that  such  poor 
actresses  get  engaged.  I  have  been  to  the  theatre 
several  times,  and  I  am  sure  there  were  actresses 
who  seemed  to  me  to  act  not  at  all  well  and  who 
were  quite  plain." 

"  Ah,  my  dear  Miss  Harleth,  that  is  the  easy 
criticism  of  the  buyer.  We  who  buy  slippers 
toss  away  this  pair  and  the  other  as  clumsy ;  but 
there  went  an  apprenticeship  to  the  making  of 
them.  Excuse  me :  you  could  not  at  present  teach 
one  of  those  actresses ;  but  there  is  certainly  much 
that  she  could  teach  you.  For  example,  she  can 
pitch  her  voice  so  as  to  be  heard :  ten  to  one  you 
could  not  do  it  till  after  many  trials.  Merely  to 
stand  and  move  on  the  stage  is  an  art — requires 
practice.  It  is  understood  that  we  are  not  now 
talking  of  a  comparse  in  a  petty  theatre  who  earns 
the  wages  of  a  needle-woman.  That  is  out  of  the 
question  for  you." 

"  Of  course  I  must  earn  more  than  that,"  said 
Gwendolen,  with  a  sense  of  wincing  rather  than 
of  being  refuted ;  "  but  I  think  I  could  soon  learn 
to  do  tolerably  well  all  those  little  things  you 
have  mentioned.  I  am  not  so  very  stupid.  And 
even  in  Paris  I  am  sure  I  saw  two  actresses  play- 
ing important  ladies'  parts  who  were  not  at  all 
ladies,  and  quite  ugly.  I  suppose  I  have  no  par- 
ticular talent ;  but  I  mwt  think  it  is  an  advantage, 
even  on  the  stage,  to  be  a  lady,  and  not  a  perfect 
fright." 

"  Ah,  let  us  understand  each  other,"  said  Kles- 
mer, with  a  flash  of  new  meaning.  "  I  was  speak- 
ing of  what  you  would  have  to  go  through  if  you 
aimed  at  becoming  a  real  artist — if  you  took  mu- 
sic and  the  drama  as  a  higher  vocation  in  which 
you  would  strive  after  excellence.  On  that  head, 
what  I  have  said  stands  fast.  You  would  find — 
after  your  education  in  doing  things  Blackly  for 
one-and-twenty  years — great  difficulties  in  study : 
you  would  find  mortifications  in  the  treatment 
you  would  get  when  you  presented  yourself  on 
the  footing  of  skill.  You  would  be  subjected  to 


BOOK  m.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


tests:  people  would  no  longer  feign  not  to  see 
your  blunders.  You  would  at  first  only  be  ac- 
cepted on  trial  You  would  have  to  bear  what 
I  may  call  a  glaring  insignificance :  any  success 
must  be  won  by  the  utmost  patience.  You  would 
have  to  keep  your  place  in  a  crowd,  and,  after 
all,  it  is  likely  you  would  lose  it  and  get  out  of 
sight.  If  you  determine  to  face  these  hardships 
and  still  try,  you  will  have  the  dignity  of  a  high 
purpose,  even  though  you  may  have  chosen  un- 
fortunately. You  will  have  some  merit,  though 
you  may  win  no  prize.  You  have  asked  my  judg- 
ment on  your  chances  of  winning.  I  don't  pre- 
tend to  speak  absolutely ;  but  measuring  proba- 
bilities, my  judgment  is — you  will  hardly  achieve 
more  than  mediocrity." 

Klesmer  had  delivered  himself  with  emphatic 
rapidity,  and  now  paused  a  moment.  Gwendo- 
len was  motionless,  looking  at  her  hands,  which 
lay  over  each  other  on  her  lap,  till  the  deep- 
toned,  long-drawn  "  But"  with  which  he  resumed, 
had  a  startling  effect,  and  made  her  look  at  him 
again. 

"But — there  are  certainly  other  ideas,  other 
dispositions,  with  which  a  young  lady  may  take 
up  an  art  that  will  bring  her  before  the  public. 
She  may  rely  on  the  unquestioned  power  of  her 
beauty  as  a  passport.  She  may  desire  to  exhibit 
herself  to  an  admiration  which  dispenses  with 
skill.  This  goes  a  certain  way  on  the  stage :  not 
in  music :  but  on  the  stage,  beauty  is  taken  when 
there  is  nothing  more  commanding  to  be  had. 
Not  without  some  drilling,  however :  as  I  have 
said  before,  technicalities  have  in  any  case  to  be 
mastered.  But  these  excepted,  we  have  here  noth- 
ing to  do  with  art.  The  woman  who  takes  up 
this  career  is  not  an  artist :  she  is  usually  one 
who  thinks  of  entering  on  a  luxurious  life  by  a 
short  and  easy  road — perhaps  by  marriage — that 
is  her  most  brilliant  chance,  and  the  rarest.  Still, 
her  career  will  not  be  luxurious  to  begin  with : 
she  can  hardly  earn  her  own  poor  bread  inde- 
pendently at  once,  and  the  indignities  she  will  be 
liable  to  are  such  as  I  will  not  speak  of." 

"  I  desire  to  be  independent,"  said  Gwendolen, 
deeply  stung  and  confusedly  apprehending  some 
scorn  for  herself  in  Klesmer's  words.  "  That  was 
my  reason  for  asking  whether  I  could  not  get  an 
immediate  engagement.  Of  course  I  can  not  know 
how  things  go  on  about  theatres.  But  I  thought 
that  I  could  have  made  myself  independent.  I 
have  no  money,  and  I  will  not  accept  help  from 
any  one." 

Her  wounded  pride  could  not  rest  without 
making  this  disclaimer.  It  was  intolerable  to 
her  that  Klesmer  should  imagine  her  to  have  ex- 
pected other  help  from  him  than  advice. 

"  That  is  a  hard  saying  for  your  friends,"  said 
Klesmer,  recovering  the  gentleness  of  tone  with 
which  he  had  begun  the  conversation.  "  I  have 
given  you  pain.  That  was  inevitable.  I  was 
bound  to  put  the  truth,  the  unvarnished  truth,  be- 
fore you.  I  have  not  said — I  will  not  say — you 
will  do  wrong  to  choose  the  hard,  climbing  path 
of  an  endeavoring  artist.  You  have  to  compare 
its  difficulties  with  those  of  any  less  hazardous 
— any  more  private  course  which  opens  itself 
to  jou.  If  you  take  that  more  courageous  re- 
solve, I  will  ask  leave  to  shake  hands  with  you 
on  the  strength  of  our  freemasonry,  where  we 
are  all  vowed  to  the  service  of  Art,  and  to  serve 
her  by  helping  every  fellow-servant." 


Gwendolen  was  silent,  again  looking  at  her 
hands.  She  felt  herself  very  far  away  from  tak- 
ing the  resolve  that  would  enforce  acceptance ; 
and  after  waiting  an  instant  or  two,  Klesmer  went 
on  with  deepened  seriousness. 

"  Where  there  is  the  duty  of  service  there  must 
be  the  duty  of  accepting  it.  The  question  is  not 
one  of  personal  obligation.  And  in  relation  to 
practical  matters  immediately  affecting  your  fu- 
ture— excuse  my  permitting  myself  to  mention  in 
confidence  an  affair  of  my  own.  I  am  expecting 
an  event  which  would  make  it  easy  for  me  to  ex- 
ert myself  on  your  behalf  in  furthering  your  op- 
portunities of  instruction  and  residence  in  Lon- 
don— under  the  care,  that  is,  of  your  family — 
without  need  for  anxiety  on  your  part.  If  you 
resolve  to  take  art  as  a  bread-study,  you  need 
only  undertake  the  study  at  first ;  the  bread  will 
be  found  without  trouble.  The  event  I  mean  is 
my  marriage :  in  fact — you  will  receive  this  as  a 
matter  of  confidence — my  marriage  with  Miss 
Arrowpoint,  which  will  more  than  double  such 
right  as  I  have  to  be  trusted  by  you  as  a  friend. 
Your  friendship  will  have  greatly  risen  in  value 
for  her  by  your  having  adopted  that  generous 
labor." 

Gwendolen's  face  had  begun  to  burn.  That 
Klesmer  was  about  to  marry  Miss  Arrowpoint 
caused  her  no  surprise,  and  at  another  moment 
she  would  have  amused  herself  in  quickly  imag- 
ining the  scenes  that  must  have  occurred  at 
Quetcham.  But  what  engrossed  her  feeling, 
what  filled  her  imagination,  now  was  the  pano- 
rama of  her  own  immediate  future  that  Klesmer's 
words  seemed  to  have  unfolded.  The  suggestion 
of  Miss  Arrowpoint  as  a  patroness  was  only  an- 
other detail  added  to  its  repulsiveness :  Klesmer's 
proposal  to  help  her  seemed  an  additional  irrita- 
tion after  the  humiliating  judgment  he  had  pass- 
ed on  her  capabilities.  His  words  had  really  bit- 
ten into  her  self-confidence  and  turned  it  into  the 
pain  of  a  bleeding  wound ;  and  the  idea  of  pre- 
senting herself  before  other  judges  was  now  poi- 
soned with  the  dread  that  they  also  might  be 
harsh :  they  also  would  not  recognize  the  talent 
she  was  conscious  of.  But  she  controlled  her- 
self, and  rose  from  her  seat  before  she  made  any 
answer.  It  seemed  natural  that  she  should  pause. 
She  went  to  the  piano  and  looked  absently  at 
leaves  of  music,  pinching  up  the  corners.  At 
last  she  turned  toward  Klesmer  and  said,  with 
almost  her  usual  air  of  proud  equality,  which  in 
this  interview  had  not  been  hitherto  perceptible : 

"  I  congratulate  you  sincerely,  Herr  Klesmer. 
I  think  I  never  saw  any  one  more  admirable 
than  Miss  Arrowpoint.  And  I  have  to  thank  you 
for  every  sort  of  kindness  this  morning.  But  I 
can't  decide  now.  If  I  make  the  resolve  you 
have  spoken  of,  I  will  use  your  permission — I 
will  let  you  know.  But  I  fear  the  obstacles  are 
too  great.  In  any  case,  I  am  deeply  obliged  to 
you.  It  was  very  bold  of  me  to  ask  you  to  take 
this  trouble." 

Klesmer's  inward  remark  was, "  She  will  never 
let  me  know."  But  with  the  most  thorough  re- 
spect in  his  manner,  he  said, "  Command  me  at 
any  time.  There  is  an  address  on  this  card 
which  will  always  find  me  with  little  delay." 

When  he  had  taken  up  his  hat  and  was  going 
to  make  his  bow,  Gwendolen's  better  self,  con- 
scious of  an  ingratitude  which  the  clear-seeing 
Klesmer  must  have  penetrated,  made  a  desperate 


90 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


effort  to  find  its  way  above  the  stifling  layers  of 
egoistic  disappointment  and  irritation.  Looking 
at  him  with  a  glance  of  the  old  gayety,  she  put 
out  her  hand,  and  said  with  a  smile, "  If  I  take 
the  wrong  road,  it  will  not  be  because  of  your 
flattery." 

"God  forbid  that  you  should  take  any  road 
but  one  where  you  will  find  and  give  happiness !" 
said  Klesmer,  fervently.  Then,  in  foreign  fashion 
he  touched  her  fingers  lightly  with  his  lips,  and 
in  another  minute  she  heard  the  sound  of  his  de- 
parting wheels  getting  more  distant  on  the  gravel. 

Gwendolen  had  never  in  her  life  felt  so  miser- 
able. No  sob  came,  no  passion  of  tears,  to  relieve 
her.  Her  eyes  were  burning;  and  the  noonday 
only  brought  into  more  dreary  clearness  the  ab- 
sence of  interest  from  her  life.  All  memories, 
all  objects,  the  pieces  of  music  displayed,  the 
open  piano — the  very  reflection  of  herself  in  the 
glass — seemed  no  better  than  the  packed -up 
shows  of  a  departing  fair.  For  the  first  time 
since  her  consciousness  began,  she  was  having  a 
vision  of  herself  on  the  common  level,  and  had 
lost  the  innate  sense  that  there  were  reasons  why 
she  should  not  be  slighted,  elbowed,  jostled — 
treated  like  a  passenger  with  a  third-class  ticket, 
in  spite  of  private  objections  on  her  own  part. 
She  did  not  move  about ;  the  prospects  begotten 
by  disappointment  were  too  oppressively  preoc- 
cupying ;  she  threw  herself  into  the  shadiest  cor- 
ner of  a  settee,  and  pressed  her  fingers  over  her 
burning  eyelids.  Every  word  that  Klesmer  had 
said  seemed  to  have  been  branded  into  her  mem- 
ory, as  most  words  are  which  bring  with  them  a 
new  set  of  impressions  and  make  an  epoch  for 
us.  Only  a  few  hours  before,  the  dawning  smile 
of  self-contentment  rested  on  her  lips  as  she 
vaguely  imagined  a  future  suited  to  her  wishes : 
it  seemed  but  the  affair  of  a  year  or  so  for  her 
to  become  the  most  approved  Juliet  of  the  time ; 
or,  if  Klesmer  encouraged  her  idea  of  being  a 
singer,  to  proceed  by  more  gradual  steps  to  her 
place  in  the  opera,  while  she  won  money  and  ap- 
plause by  occasional  performances.  Why  not  ? 
At  home,  at  school,  among  acquaintances,  she 
had  been  used  to  have  her  conscious  superiority 
admitted ;  and  she  had  moved  in  a  society  jvhere 
every  thing,  from  low  arithmetic  to  high  art,  is 
of  the  amateur  kind  politely  supposed  to  fall 
short  of  perfection  only  because  gentlemen  and 
ladies  are  not  obliged  to  do  more  than  they  like ; 
otherwise  they  would  probably  give  forth  abler 
writings  and  show  themselves  more  commanding 
artists  than  any  the  world  is  at  present  obliged 
to  put  up  with.  The  self-confident  visions  that 
had  beguiled  her  were  not  of  a  highly  exception- 
al kind ;  and  she  had  at  least  shown  some  ra- 
tionality in  consulting  the  person  who  knew  the 
most  and  had  flattered  her  the  least.  In  asking 
Klesmer's  advice,  however,  she  had  rather  been 
borne  up  by  a  belief  in  his  latent  admiration  than 
bent  on  knowing  any  thing  more  unfavorable  that 
might  have  lain  behind  his  slight  objections  to 
her  singing;  and  the  truth  she  had  asked  for 
with  an  expectation  that  it  would  be  agreeable 
had  come  like  a  lacerating  thong. 

"  Too  old — should  have  begun  seven  years  ago 
— you  will  not,  at  best,  achieve  more  than  niodi- 
ocrity — hard,  incessant  work,  uncertain  praise — 
bread  coming  slowly,  scantily,  perhaps  not  at  all 
— mortifications,  people  no  longer  feigning  not  to 
see  your  blunders — glaring  insignificance" — all 


these  phrases  rankled  in  her;  and  even  more 
galling  was  the  hint  that  she  could  only  be  ac- 
cepted on  the  stage  as  a  beauty  who  hoped  to  get 
a  husband.  The  "  indignities"  that  she  might  be 
visited  with  had  no  very  definite  form  for  her,  but 
the  mere  association  of  any  thing  called  "indig- 
nity" with  herself  roused  a  resentful  alarm.  And 
along  with  the  vaguer  images  which  were  raised 
by  those  biting  words,  came  the  more  precise 
conception  of  disagreeables  which  her  experience 
enabled  her  to  imagine.  How  could  she  take  her 
mamma  and  the  four  sisters  to  London,  if  it  were 
not  possible  for  her  to  earn  money  at  once  ?  And 
as  for  submitting  to  be  a  protegee,  and  asking  her 
mamma  to  submit  with  her  to  the  humiliation  of 
being  supported  by  Miss  Arrowpoint — that  was 
as  bad  as  being  a  governess ;  nay,  worse ;  for  sup- 
pose the  end  of  all  her  study  to  be  as  worthless 
as  Klesmer  clearly  expected  it  to  be,  the  sense  of 
favors  received  and  never  repaid  would  imbitter 
the  miseries  of  disappointment.  Klesmer  doubt- 
less had  magnificent  ideas  about  helping  artists ; 
but  how  could  he  know  the  feelings  of  ladies  in 
such  matters  ?  It  was  all  over :  she  had  enter- 
tained a  mistaken  hope ;  and  there  was  an  end 
of  it. 

"An  end  of  it!"  said  Gwendolen,  aloud,  start- 
ing from  her  seat  as  she  heard  the  steps  and 
voices  of  her  mamma  and  sisters  coming  in  from 
church.  She  hurried  to  the  piano  and  began 
gathering  together  her  pieces  of  music  with  as- 
sumed diligence,  while  the  expression  on  her  pale 
face  and  in  her  burning  eyes  was  what  would 
have  suited  a  woman  enduring  a  wrong  which 
she  might  not  resent,  but  would  probably  revenge. 

"  Well,  my  darling,"  said  gentle  Mrs.  Davilow, 
entering,  "  I  see  by  the  wheel  marks  that  Kles- 
mer has  been  here.  Have  you  been  satisfied  with 
the  interview  ?"  She  had  some  guesses  as  to  its 
object,  but  felt  timid  about  implying  them. 

"  Satisfied,  mamma  ?  oh  yes,"  said  Gwendolen, 
in  a  high  hard  tone,  for  which  she  must  be  ex- 
cused, because  she  dreaded  a  scene  of  emotion. 
If  she  did  not  set  herself  resolutely  to  feign  proud 
indifference,  she  felt  that  she  must  fall  into  a  pas- 
sionate outburst  of  despair,  which  would  cut  her 
mamma  more  deeply  than  all  the  rest  of  their 
calamities. 

"  Your  uncle  and  aunt  were  disappointed  at  not 
seeing  you,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  coining  near  the 
piano,  and  watching  Gwendolen's  movements.  "  I 
only  said  that  you  wanted  rest." 

"  Quite  right,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  the 
same  tone,  turning  to  put  away  some  music. 

"Am  I  not  to  know  any  thing  now,  Gwendo- 
len ?  Am  I  always  to  be  in  the  dark  *"  said  Mrs. 
Davilow,  too  keenly  sensitive  to  her  daughter's 
manner  and  expression  not  to  fear  that  something 
painful  had  occurred. 

"  There  is  really  nothing  to  tell  now,  mamma," 
said  Gwendolen,  in  a  still  higher  voice.  "  I  had 
a  mistaken  idea  about  something  I  could  do. 
Herr  Klesmer  has  undeceived  me.  That  is  all." 

"  Don't  look  and  speak  in  that  way,  my  dear 
child :  I  can  not  bear  it,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  break- 
ing down.  She  felt  an  undefiuablc  terror. 

Gwendolen  looked  at  her  a  moment  in  silence, 
biting  her  inner  lip ;  then  she  went  up  to  her,  a.nd 
putting  her  hands  on  her  mamma's  shoulders, 
said,  with  a  drop  of  her  voice  to  the  lowest  un- 
der-tonc,  "  Mamma,  don't  speak  to  me  now.  It  is 
useless  to  cry  and  waste  our  strength  over  what 


BOOK  III— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


91 


can't  be  altered.  You  will  live  at  Sawyer's  Cot- 
tage, and  I  am  going  to  the  bishop's  daughters. 
There  is  no  more  to  be  said.  Things  can  not  be 
altered,  and  who  cares  ?  It  makes  no  difference 
to  any  one  else  what  we  do.  We  must  try  not  to 
care  ourselves.  We  must  not  give  way.  I  dread 
giving  way.  Help  me  to  be  quiet." 

Mrs.  Davilow  was  like  a  frightened  child  under 
her  daughter's  face  and  voice :  her  tears  were  ar- 
rested, and  she  went  away  in  silence. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

"I  question  things  and  do  not  find 
One  that  will  answer  to  my  mind ; 
And  all  the  world  appears  unkind." 

— \VOJLD8WOBTH. 

GWENDOLEN  was  glad  that  she  had  got  through 
her  interview  with  Klesmer  before  meeting  her 
uncle  and  aunt.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  now 
that  there  were  only  disagreeables  before  her,  and 
she  felt  able  to  maintain  a  dogged  calm  in  the 
face  of  any  humiliation  that  might  be  proposed. 

The  meeting  did  not  happen  until  the  Monday, 
when  Gwendolen  went  to  the  Rectory  with  her 
mamma.  They  had  called  at  Sawyer's  Cottage  by 
the  way,  and  had  seen  every  cranny  of  the  narrow 
rooms  in  a  mid-day  light  unsoftened  by  blinds 
and  curtains ;  for  the  furnishing  to  be  done  by 
gleanings  from  the  Rectory  had  not  yet  begun. 

"  How  shall  you  endure  it,  mamma  ?"  said 
Gwendolen,  as  they  walked  away.  She  had  not 
opened  her  lips  while  they  were  looking  round  at 
the  bare  walls  and  floors,  and  the  little  garden 
with  the  cabbage  stalks,  and  the  yew  arbor  all 
dust  and  cobwebs  within.  "You  and  the  four 
girls  all  in  that  closet  of  a  room,  with  the  green 
and  yellow  paper  pressing  on  your  eyes*  And 
without  me?" 

"  It  will  be  some  comfort  that  you  have  not  to 
bear  it  too,  dear." 

"  If  it  were  not  that  I  must  get  some  money,  I 
would  rather  be  there  than  go  to  be  a  governess." 

"Don't  set  yourself  against  it  beforehand, 
Gwendolen.  If  you  go  to  the  palace,  you  will 
have  every  luxury  about  you.  And  you  know 
how  much  you  have  always  cared  for  that.  You 
will  not  find  it  so  hard  as  going  up  and  down 
those  steep  narrow  stairs,  and  hearing  the  crock- 
ery rattle  through  the  house,  and  the  dear  girls 
talking." 

"  It  is  like  a  bad  dream,"  said  Gwendolen,  im- 
petuously. "  I  can  not  believe  that  my  uncle  will 
let  you  go  to  such  a  place.  He  ought  to  have 
taken  some  other  steps." 

"Don't  be  unreasonable,  dear  child.  What 
could  he  have  done  ?" 

"  That  was  for  him  to  find  out.  It  seems  to 
me  a  very  extraordinary  world  if  people  in  our 
position  must  sink  in  this  way  all  at  once,"  said 
Gwendolen,  the  other  worlds  with  which  she  was 
conversant  being  constructed  with  a  sense  of  fit- 
ness that  arranged  her  own  future  agreeably. 

It  was  her  temper  that  framed  her  sentences 
under  this  entirely  new  pressure  of  evils :  she 
could  have  spoken  more  suitably  on  the  vicissi- 
tudes in  other  people's  lives,  though  it  was  never 
her  aspiration  to  express  herself  virtuously  so 
much  as  cleverly — a  point  to  be  remembered  in 
extenuation  of  her  words,  which  were  usually 
worse  than  she  was. 


And,  notwithstanding  the  keen  sense  of  her 
own  bruises,  she  was  capable  of  some  compunc- 
tion when  her  uncle  and  aunt  received  her  with  a 
more  affectionate  kindness  than  they  had  ever 
shown  before.  She  could  not  but  be  struck  by 
the  dignified  cheerfulness  with  which  they  talked 
of  the  necessary  economies  in  their  way  of  living 
and  in  the  education  of  the  boys.  Mr.  Gascoigne's 
worth  of  character,  a  little  obscured  by  worldly 
opportunities — as  the  poetic  beauty  of  women  is 
obscured  by  the  demands  of  fashionable  dressing 
— showed  itself  to  great  advantage  under  this 
sudden  reduction  of  fortune.  Prompt  and  me- 
thodical, he  had  set  himself  not  only  to  put  down 
bis  carriage,  but  to  reconsider  his  worn  suits  of 
clothes,  to  leave  off  meat  for  breakfast,  to  do 
without  periodicals,  to  get  Edwy  from  school  and 
arrange  hours  of  study  for  all  the  boys  under  him- 
self, and  to  order  the  whole  establishment  on  the 
sparest  footing  possible.  For  all  healthy  people 
economy  has  its  pleasures ;  and  the  Rector's  spir- 
it had  spread  through  the  household.  Mrs.  Gas- 
coigne and  Anna,  who  always  made  papa  their 
model,  really  did  not  miss  a'ny  thing  they  cared 
about  for  themselves,  and  in  all  sincerity  felt  that 
the  saddest  part  of  the  family  losses  was  the 
change  for  Mrs.  Davilow  and  her  children. 

Anna  for  the  first  time  could  merge  her  resent- 
ment on  behalf  of  Rex  in  her  sympathy  with 
Gwendolen ;  and  Mrs.  Gascoigne  was  disposed  to 
hope  that  trouble  would  have  a  salutary  effect  on 
her  niece,  without  thinking  it  her  duty  to  add 
any  bitters  by  way  of  increasing  the  salutariness. 
They  had  both  been  busy  devising  how  to  get 
blinds  and  curtains  for  the  cottage  out  of  the 
household  stores ;  but  with  delicate  feeling  they 
left  these  matters  in  the  background,  and  talked 
at  first  of  Gwendolen's  journey,  and  the  comfort 
it  was  to  her  mamma  to  have  her  at  home  again, 

In  fact,  there  was  nothing  for  Gwendolen  to 
take  as  a  justification  for  extending  her  discontent 
with  events  to  the  persons  immediately  around 
her,  and  she  felt  shaken  into  a  more  alert  atten- 
tion, as  if  by  a  call  to  drill  that  every  body  else 
was  obeying,  when  her  uncle  began  in  a  voice  of 
firm  kindness  to  talk  to  her  of  the  efforts  he  had 
been  making  to  get  her  a  situation  which  would 
offer  her  as  many  advantages  as  possible.  Mr. 
Gascoigne  had  not  forgotten  Grandcourt,  but  the 
possibility  of  further  advances  from  that  quarter 
was  something  too  vague  for  a  man  of  his  good 
sense  to  be  determined  by  it :  uncertainties  of 
that  kind  must  not  now  slacken  his  action  in  do- 
ing the  best  he  could  for  his  niece  under  actual 
conditions. 

"  I  felt  that  there  was  no  time  to  be  lost,  Gwen- 
dolen ;  for  a  position  in  a  good  family  where  you 
will  have  some  consideration  is  not  to  be  had  at 
a  moment's  notice.  And  however  long  we  waited, 
we  could  hardly  find  one  where  you  would  be  bet- 
ter off  than  at  Bishop  Mompert's.  I  am  known  to 
both  him  and  Mrs.  Mompert,  and  that,  of  course, 
is  an  advantage  for  you.  Our  correspondence 
has  gone  on  favorably ;  but  I  can  not  be  surprised 
that  Mrs.  Mompert  wishes  to  see  you  before  mak- 
ing an  absolute  engagement.  She  thinks  of  ar- 
ranging for  you  to  meet  her  at  Wancester  when 
she  is  on  her  way  to  town.  I  dare  say  you  will 
feel  the  interview  rather  trying  for  you,  my  dear ; 
but  you  will  have  a  little  tune  to  prepare  your 
mind." 

"Do  you  know  why  she  wants  to  see  me,  un- 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


cle?"  said  Gwendolen,  whose  mind  had  quickly 
gone  over  various  reasons  that  an  imaginary 
Mrs.  Mompert  with  three  daughters  might  be 
supposed  to  entertain — reasons  all  of  a  disagree- 
able kind  to  the  person  presenting  herself  for 
inspection. 

The  Rector  smiled.  "Don't  be  alarmed,  my 
dear.  She  would  like  to  have  a  more  precise  idea 
of  you  than  my  report  can  give.  And  a  mother 
is  naturally  scrupulous  about  a  companion  for  her 
daughters.  I  have  told  her  you  are  very  young. 
But  she  herself  exercises  a  close  supervision  over 
her  daughters'  education,  and  that  makes  her  less 
anxious  as  to  age.  She  is  a  woman  of  taste  and 
also  of  strict  principle,  and  objects  to  having  a 
French  person  in  the  house.  I  feel  sure  that  she 
will  think  your  manners  and  accomplishments  as 
good  as  she  is  likely  to  find ;  and  over  the  religious 
and  moral  tone  of  the  education  she,  and  indeed 
the  bishop  himself,  will  preside." 

Gwendolen  dared  not  answer,  but  the  repres- 
sion of  her  decided  dislike  to  the  whole  prospect 
sent  an  unusually  deep  flush  over  her  face  and 
neck,  subsiding  as  quickly  as  it  came.  Anna, 
full  of  tender  fears,  put  her  little  hand  into  her 
cousin's,  and  Mr.  Gascoigne  was  too  kind  a  man 
not  to  conceive  something  of  the  trial  which  this 
sudden  change  must  be  for  a  girl  like  Gwendolen. 
Bent  on  giving  a  cheerful  view  of  things,  he  went 
on  in  an  easy  tone  of  remark,  not  as  if  answer- 
ing supposed  objections : 

"  I  think  so  highly  of  the  position  that  I  should 
have  been  tempted  to  try  and  get  it  for  Anna,  if 
she  had  been  at  all  likely  to  meet  Mrs.  Mompert's 
wants.  It  is  really  a  home,  with  a  continuance 
of  education  in  the  highest  sense :  '  governess'  is 
a  misnomer.  The  bishop's  views  are  of  a  more 
decidedly  Low -Church  color  than  my  own — he 
is  a  close  friend  of  Lord  Grampian's ;  but  though 
privately  strict,  he  is  not  by  any  means  narrow 
in  public  matters.  Indeed,  he  has  created  as  lit- 
tle dislike  in  his  diocese  as  any  bishop  on  the 
bench.  He  has  always  remained  friendly  to  me, 
though  before  his  promotion,  when  he  was  an  in- 
cumbent of  this  diocese,  we  had  a  little  contro- 
versy about  the  Bible  Society." 

The  Rector's  words  were  too  pregnant  with  sat- 
isfactory meaning  to  himself  for  him  to  imagine 
the  effect  they  produced  in  the  mind  of  his  niece. 
"  Continuance  of  education" — "  bishop's  views" — 
"  privately  strict" — "  Bible  Society" — it  was  as  if 
he  had  introduced  a  few  snakes  at  large  for  the 
instruction  of  ladies  who  regarded  them  as  all 
alike  furnished  with  poison-bags,  and  biting  or 
stinging  according  to  convenience.  To  Gwendo- 
len, already  shrinking  from  the  prospect  opened 
to  her,  such  phrases  came  like  the  growing  heat 
of  a  burning-glass — not  at  all  as  the  links  of 
persuasive  reflection  which  they  formed  for  the 
good  uncle.  She  began  desperately  to  seek  an 
alternative. 

"  There  was  another  situation,  I  think,  mamma 
spoke  of  ?"  she  said,  with  determined  self-mas- 
tery. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Rector,  in  rather  a  depreciatory 
tone ;  "  but  that  is  in  a  school.  I  should  not 
have  the  same  satisfaction  in  your  taking  that. 
It  would  be  much  harder  work,  you  are  aware, 
and  not  so  good  in  any  other  respect.  Besides, 
you  have  not  an  equal  chance  of  getting  it." 

"  Oh  dear  no,"  said  Mrs.  Gascoigne,  "  it  would 
be  much  harder  for  you,  my  dear— much  less 


appropriate.  You  might  not  have  a  bedroom  to 
yourself."  And  Gwendolen's  memories  of  school 
suggested  other  particulars  which  forced  her  to 
admit  to  herself  that  this  alternative  would  be  no 
relief.  She  turned  to  her  uncle  again  and  said, 
apparently  in  acceptance  of  his  ideas, 

"  When  is  Mrs.  Mompert  likely  to  send  for 
me?" 

"  That  is  rather  uncertain,  but  she  has  promised 
not  to  entertain  any  other  proposal  till  she  has 
seen  you.  She  has  entered  with  much  feeling  into 
your  position.  It  will  be  within  the  next  fort- 
night, probably.  But  I  must  be  off  now.  I  am 
going  to  let  part  of  my  glebe  uncommonly  well." 

The  Rector  ended  very  cheerfully,  leaving  the 
room  with  the  satisfactory  conviction  that  Gwen- 
dolen was  going  to  adapt  herself  to  circum- 
stances like  a  girl  of  good  sense.  Having  spoken 
appropriately,  he  naturally  supposed  that  the  ef- 
fects would  be  appropriate;  being  accustomed 
as  a  household  and  parish  authority  to  be  asked 
to  "speak  to"  refractory  persons,  with  the  un- 
derstanding that  the  measure  was  morally  co- 
ercive. 

"  What  a  stay  Henry  is  to  us  all !"  said  Mrs. 
Gascoigne,  when  her  husband  had  left  the  room. 

"  He  is  indeed,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  cordially. 
"  I  think  cheerf ulness  is  a  fortune  in  itself.  I 
wish  I  had  it." 

"And  Rex  is  just  like  him,"  said  Mrs.  Gas- 
coigne. "I  must  tell  you  the  comfort  we  have 
had  in  a  letter  from  him.  I  must  read  you  a  lit- 
tle bit,"  she  added,  taking  the  letter  from  her 
pocket,  while  Anna  looked  rather  frightened — 
she  did  not  know  why,  except  that  it  had  been 
a  rule  with  her  not  to  mention  Rex  before  Gwen- 
dolen. 

The  proud  mother  ran  her  eyes  over  the  letter, 
seeking  for  sentences  to  read  aloud.  But  ap- 
parently she  had  found  it  sown  with  what  might 
seem  to  be  closer  allusions  than  she  desired  to  the 
recent  past,  for  she  looked  up,  folding  the  letter, 
and  saying, 

"However,  he  tells  us  that  our  trouble  has 
made  a  man  of  him:  he  sees  a  reason  for  any 
amount  of  work :  he  means  to  get  a  fellowship, 
to  take  pupils,  to  set  one  of  his  brothers  going, 
to  be  every  thing  that  is  most  remarkable.  The 
letter  is  full  of  fun — just  like  him.  He  says, 
'Tell  mother  she  has  put  out  an  advertisement 
for  a  jolly  good  hard-working  son,  in  time  to  hin- 
der me  from  taking  ship ;  and  I  offer  myself  for 
the  place.'  The  letter  came  on  Friday.  I  never 
saw  my  husband  so  much  moved  by  any  thing 
since  Rex  was  born.  It  seemed  a  gain  to  balance 
our  loss." 

This  letter,  in  fact,  was  what  had  helped  both 
Mrs.  Gascoigne  and  Anna  to  show  Gwendolen 
an  unmixed  kindliness ;  and  she  herself  felt  very 
amiably  about  it,  smiling  at  Anna  and  pinching 
her  chin  as  much  as  to  say, "  Nothing  is  wrong 
with  you  now,  is  it  ?"  She  had  no  gratuitously 
ill-natured  feeling,  or  egoistic  pleasure  in  making 
men  miserable.  She  only  had  an  intense  objec- 
tion to  their  making  her  miserable. 

But  when  the  talk  turned  on  furniture  for  the 
cottage,  Gwendolen  was  not  roused  to  show  even 
a  languid  interest.  She  thought  that  she  had 
done  as  much  as  could  be  expected  of  her  this 
morning,  and  indeed  felt  at  a  heroic  pitch  in 
keeping  to  herself  the  struggle  that  was  going 
on  within  her.  The  recoil  of  her  mind  from  the 


BOOK  HI.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


93 


only  definite  prospect  allowed  her  was  stronger 
than  even  she  had  imagined  beforehand.  The 
idea  of  presenting  herself  before  Mrs.  Mompert  in 
the  first  instance,  to  be  approved  or  disapproved, 
came  as  pressure  on  an  already  painful  bruise: 
even  as  a  governess,  it  appeared,  she  was  to  be 
tested  and  was  liable  to  rejection.  After  she  had 
done  herself  the  violence  to  accept  the  bishop 
and  his  wife,  they  were  still  to  consider  whether 
they  would  accept  her ;  it  was  at  her  peril  that  she 
was  to  look,  speak,  or  be  silent.  And  even  when 
she  had  entered  on  her  dismal  task  of  self-con- 
straint in  the  society  of  three  girls  whom  she 
was  bound  incessantly  to  edify,  the  same  process 
of  inspection  was  to  go  on :  there  was  always  to 
be  Mrs.  Mompert's  supervision ;  always  something 
or  other  would  be  expected  of  her  to  which  she 
had  not  the  slightest  inclination;  and  perhaps 
the  bishop  would  examine  her  on  serious  topics. 
Gwendolen,  lately  used  to  the  social  successes  of 
a  handsome  girl,  whose  lively  venturesomeness  of 
talk  has  the  effect  of  wit,  and  who  six  weeks  be- 
fore would  have  pitied  the  dullness  of  the  bishop 
rather  than  have  been  embarrassed  by  him,  saw 
the  life  before  her  as  an  entrance  into  a  peniten- 
tiary. Wild  thoughts  of  running  away  to  be  an 
actress,  in  spite  of  Klesmer,  came  to  her  with  the 
lure  of  freedom ;  but  his  words  still  hung  heavily 
on  her  soul ;  they  had  alarmed  her  pride  and  even 
her  maidenly  dignity:  dimly  she  conceived  her- 
self getting  among  vulgar  people  who  would  treat 
her  with  rude  familiarity — odious  men  whose 
grins  and  smirks  would  not  be  seen  through  the 
strong  grating  of  polite  society.  Gwendolen's  dar- 
ing was  not  in  the  least  that  of  the  adventuress ; 
the  demand  to  be  held  a  lady  was  in  her  very 
marrow ;  and  when  she  had  dreamed  that  she 
might  be  the  heroine  of  the  gaming  table,  it  was 
with  the  understanding  that  no  one  should  treat 
her  with  the  less  consideration,  or  presume  to 
look  at  her  with  irony,  as  Deronda  had  done.  To 
be  protected  and  petted,  and  to  have  her  suscepti- 
bilities consulted  in  every  detail,  had  gone  along 
with  her  food  and  clothing  as  matters  of  course  in 
her  life :  even  without  any  such  warning  as  Kles- 
mer's  she  could  not  have  thought  it  an  attractive 
freedom  to  be  thrown  in  solitary  dependence  on 
the  doubtful  civility  of  strangers.  The  endurance 
of  the  episcopal  penitentiary  was  less  repulsive 
than  that ;  though  here  too  she  would  certainly 
never  be  petted  or  have  her  susceptibilities  con- 
sulted. Her  rebellion  against  this  hard  necessity 
which  had  come  just  to  her  of  all  people  in  the 
world — to  her  whom  all  circumstances  had  con- 
curred in  preparing  for  something  quite  different 
— was  exaggerated  instead  of  diminished  as  one 
hour  followed  another,  filled  with  the  imagination 
of  what  she  might  have  expected  in  her  lot  and 
what  it  was  actually  to  be.  The  family  troubles, 
she  thought,  were  easier  for  every  one  than  for 
her — even  for  poor  dear  mamma,  because  she  had 
always  used  herself  to  not  enjoying.  As  to  hop- 
ing that  if  she  went  to  the  Momperts'  and  was 
patient  a  little  while,  things  might  get  better — it 
would  be  stupid  to  entertain  hopes  for  herself 
after  all  that  had  happened :  her  talents,  it  ap- 
peared, would  never  be  recognized  as  any  thing 
remarkable,  and  there  was  not  a  single  direction 
in  which  probability  seemed  to  flatter  her  wishes. 
Some  beautiful  girls  who,  like  her,  had  read  ro- 
mances where  even  plain  governesses  are  centres 
of  attraction  and  are  sought  in  marriage,  might 


have  solaced  themselves  a  little  by  transporting 
such  pictures  into  their  own  future ;  but  even  if 
Gwendolen's  experience  had  led  her  to  dwell  on 
love-making  and  marriage  as  her  elysium,  her 
heart  was  too  much  oppressed  by  what  was  near 
to  her,  in  both  the  past  and  the  future,  for  her  to 
project  her  anticipations  very  far  off.  She  had 
a  world-nausea  upon  her,  and  saw  no  reason  all 
through  her  life  why  she  should  wish  to  live.  No 
religious  view  of  trouble  helped  her :  her  troubles 
had  in  her  opinion  all  been  caused  by  other  peo- 
ple's disagreeable  or  wicked  conduct ;  and  there 
was  really  nothing  pleasant  to  be  counted  on  in 
the  world :  that  was  her  feeling ;  every  thing  else 
she  had  heard  said  about  trouble  was  mere  phrase- 
making  not  attractive  enough  for  her  to  have 
caught  it  up  and  repeated  it.  As  to  the  sweet- 
ness of  labor  and  fulfilled  claims ;  the  interest  of 
inward  and  outward  activity ;  the  impersonal  de- 
lights of  life  as  a  perpetual  discovery ;  the  dues 
of  courage,  fortitude,  industry,  which  it  is  mere 
baseness  not  to  pay  toward  the  common  burden ; 
the  supreme  worth  of  the  teacher's  vocation — 
these,  even  if  they  had  been  eloquently  preached 
to  her,  could  have  been  no  more  than  faintly 
apprehended  doctrines :  the  fact  which  wrought 
upon  her  was  her  invariable  observation  that  for 
a  lady  to  become  a  governess — to  "  take  a  situa- 
tion"— was  to  descend  in  life  and  to  be  treated  at 
best  with  a  compassionate  patronage.  And  poor 
Gwendolen  had  never  dissociated  happiness  from 
personal  pre-eminence  and  eclat.  That  where 
these  threatened  to  forsake  her,  she  should  take 
life  to  be  hardly  worth  the  having,  can  not  make 
her  so  unlike  the  rest  of  us,  men  or  women,  that 
we  should  cast  her  out  of  our  compassion ;  our 
moments  of  temptation  to  a  mean  opinion  of 
things  in  general  being  usually  dependent  on  some 
susceptibility  about  ourselves  and  some  dullness 
to  subjects  which  every  one  else  would  consider 
more  important.  Surely  a  young  creature  is  pit- 
iable who  has  the  labyrinth  of  life  before  her  and 
no  clew — to  whom  distrust  in  herself  and  her 
good  fortune  has  come  as  a  sudden  shock,  like  a 
rent  across  the  path  that  she  was  treading  care- 
lessly. 

In  spite  of  her  healthy  frame,  her  irreconcila- 
ble repugnance  affected  her  even  physically :  she 
felt  a  sort  of  numbness,  and  could  set  about  noth- 
ing ;  the  least  urgency,  even  that  she  should  take 
her  meals,  was  an  irritation  to  her ;  the  speech 
of  others  on  any  subject  seemed  unreasonable, 
because  it  did  not  include  her  feeling  and  was  an 
ignorant  claim  on  her.  It  was  not  in  her  nature 
to  busy  herself  with  the  fancies  of  suicide  to 
which  disappointed  young  people  are  prone :  what 
occupied  and  exasperated  her  was  the  sense  that 
there  was  nothing  for  her  but  to  live  in  a  way  she 
hated.  She  avoided  going  to  the  Rectory  again : 
it  was  too  intolerable  to  have  to  look  and  talk  as 
if  she  were  compliant ;  and  she  could  not  exert 
herself  to  show  interest  about  the  furniture  of 
that  horrible  cottage.  Miss  Merry  was  staying 
on  purpose  to  help,  and  such  people  as  Jocosa 
liked  that  sort  of  thing.  Her  mother  had  to 
make  excuses  for  her  not  appearing,  even  when 
Anna  came  to  see  her.  For  that  calm  which 
Gwendolen  had  promised  herself  to  maintain  had 
changed  into  sick  motivelessness :  she  thought, 
"  I  suppose  I  shall  begin  to  pretend  by-and-by, 
but  why  should  I  do  it  now  ?" 

Her  mother  watched  her  with  silent  distress ; 


94 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


and,  lapsing  into  tbe  habit  of  indulgent  tender 
ness,  she  began  to  think  what  she  imagined  tha 
Gwendolen  was  thinking,  and  to  wish  that  every 
thing  should  give  way  to  the  possibility  of  mak 
ing  her  darling  less  miserable. 

One  day  when  she  was  in  the  black  and  yellow 
bedroom  and  her  mother  was  lingering  there  under 
the  pretext  of  considering  and  arranging  Gwen 
dolen's  articles  of  dress,  she  suddenly  roused  her 
self  to  fetch  the  casket  which  contained  her  orna 
ments. 

"  Mamma,"  she  began,  glancing  over  the  upper 
layer,  "  I  had  forgotten  these  things.  Why  didn' 
you  remind  me  of  them  ?  Do  see  about  getting 
them  sold.  You  will  not  mind  about  parting  with 
them.  You  gave  them  all  to  me  long  ago." 

She  lifted  the  upper  tray  and  looked  below. 

"  If  we  can  do  without  them,  darling,  I  would 
rather  keep  them  for  you,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow, 
seating  herself  beside  Gwendolen  with  a  feeling  ol 
relief  that  she  was  beginning  to  talk  about  some- 
thing. The  usual  relation  between  them  had  be- 
come reversed.  It  was  now  the  mother  who  tried 
to  cheer  the  daughter.  "  Why,  how  came  you  to 
put  that  pocket-handkerchief  in  here  ?" 

It  was  the  handkerchief  with  the  corner  torn 
off  which  Gwendolen  had  thrust  in  with  the  tur- 
quois  necklace. 

"  It  happened  to  be  with  the  necklace — I  was 
in  a  hurry,"  said  Gwendolen,  taking  the  handker- 
chief away  and  putting  it  in  her  pocket.  "  Don't 
sell  the  necklace,  mamma,"  she  added,  a  new 
feeling  having  come  over  her  about  that  rescue  of 
it  which  had  formerly  been  so  offensive. 

"  No,  dear,  no ;  it  was  made  out  of  your  dear 
father's  chain.  And  I  should  prefer  not  selling 
the  other  things.  None  of  them  are  of  any  great 
value.  All  my  best  ornaments  were  taken  from 
me  long  ago." 

Mrs.  Davilow  colored.  She  usually  avoided  any 
reference  to  such  facts  about  Gwendolen's  step- 
father as  that  he  had  carried  off  his  wife's  jewel- 
ry and  disposed  of  it.  After  a  moment's  pause 
she  went  on, 

"  And  these  things  have  not  been  reckoned  on 
for  any  expenses.  Carry  them  with  you." 

"  That  would  be  quite  useless,  mamma,"  said 
Gwendolen,  coldly.  "  Governesses  don't  wear  or- 
naments. You  had  better  get  me  a  gray  frieze 
livery  and  a  straw  poke,  such  as  my  aunt's  char- 
ity children  wear." 

"  No,  dear,  no  ;  don't  take  that  view  of  it.  I 
feel  sure  the  Momperts  will  like  you  the  better 
for  being  graceful  and  elegant." 

"  I  am  not  at  all  sure  what  the  Momperts  will 
like  me  to  be.  It  is  enough  that  I  am  expected 
to  be  what  they  like,"  said  Gwendolen,  bitterly. 

"If  there -is  any  thing  you  would  object  to  less 
—any  thing  that  could  be  done — instead  of  your 
going  to  the  bishop's,  do  say  so,  Gwendolen. 
Tell  me  what  is  in  your  heart.  I  will  try  for  any 
thing  you  wish,"  said  the  mother,  beseechingly. 
"  Don't  keep  things  away  from  me.  Let  us  bear 
them  together." 

"  Oh,  mamma,  there  is  nothing  to  tell.  I  can't 
do  any  thing  better.  I  must  think  myself  fortu- 
nate if  they  will  have  me.  I  shall  get  some  mon- 
ey for  you.  That  is  the  only  thing  I  have  to 
think  of.  I  shall  not  spend  any  money  this  year : 
you  will  have  all  the  hundred  pounds.  I  don't 
know  how  far  that  will  go  in  housekeeping ;  but 
you  need  not  stitch  your  poor  fingers  to  the  bone, 


and  stare  away  all  the  sight  that  the  tears  have 
left  in  your  dear  eyes." 

Gwendolen  did  not  give  any  caresses  with  her 
words,  as  she  had  been  used  to  do.  She  did  not 
even  look  at  her  mother,  but  was  looking  at  the 
turquois  necklace  as  she  turned  it  over  her  fin- 
gers. 

"  Bless  you  for  your  tenderness,  my  good  dar- 
ling !"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  with  tears  in  her  eyes. 
"Don't  despair  because  there  are  clouds  now. 
You  are  so  young.  There  may  be  great  happi- 
ness in  store  for  you  yet." 

"  I  don't  see  any  reason  for  expecting  it,  mam- 
ma," said  Gwendolen,  in  a  hard  tone ;  and  Mrs. 
Davilow  was  silent,  thinking,  as  she  had  often 
thought  before,  "  What  did  happen  between  her 
and  Mr.  Grandcourt  ?" 

"  I  mil  keep  this  necklace,  mamma,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, laying  it  apart  and  then  closing  the  casket. 
"  But  do  get  the  other  things  sold  even  if  they 
will  not  bring  much.  Ask  my  uncle  what  to  do 
with  them.  I  shall  certainly  not  use  them  again. 
I  am  going  to  take  the  veil.  I  wonder  if  all  the 
poor  wretches  who  have  ever  taken  it  felt  as  I  do." 

"  Don't  exaggerate  evils,  dear." 

"How  can  any  one  know  that  I  exaggerate, 
when  I  am  speaking  of  my  own  feeling  ?  I  did 
not  say  what  any  one  else  felt." 

She  took  out  the  torn  handkerchief  from  her 
pocket  again,  and  wrapped  it  deliberately  round 
the  necklace.  Mrs.  Davilow  observed  the  action 
with  some  surprise,  but  the  tone  of  the  last  words 
discouraged  her  from  asking  any  question. 

The  "  feeling"  Gwendolen  spoke  of  with  an  air 
of  tragedy  was  not  to  be  explained  by  the  mere 
fact  that  she  was  going  to  be  a  governess :  she 
was  possessed  by  a  spirit  of  general  disappoint- 
ment. It  was  not  simply  that  she  had  a  distaste 
for  what  she  was  called  on  to  do :  the  distaste 
spread  itself  over  the  world  outside  her  peniten- 
tiary, since  she  saw  nothing  very  pleasant  in  it 
that  seemed  attainable  by  her  even  if  she  were 
free.  Naturally  her  grievances  did  not  seem  to 
her  smaller  than  some  of  her  male  contempora- 
ries held  theirs  to  be  when  they  felt  a  profession 
too  narrow  for  their  powers,  and  had  an  a  priori 
conviction  that  it  was  not  worth  while  to  put 
forth  their  latent  abilities.  Because  her  educa- 
tion had  been  less  expensive  than  theirs,  it  did 
not  follow  that  she  should  have  wider  emotions 
or  a  keener  intellectual  vision.  Her  griefs  were 
feminine ;  but  to  her,  as  a  woman,  they  were  not 
the  less  hard  to  bear,  and  she  felt  an  equal  right 
to  the  Promethean  tone. 

But  the  movement  of  mind  which  led  her  to 
keep  the  necklace,  to  fold  it  up  in  the  handker- 
chief, and  rise  to  put  it  in  her  necessairc,  where 
she  had  first  placed  it  when  it  had  been  return- 
ed to  her,  was  more  peculiar,  and  what  would  be 
called  less  reasonable.  It  came  from  that  streak 
of  superstition  in  her  which  attached  itself  both 
to  her  confidence  and  her  terror — a  superstition 
vhich  lingers  in  an  intense  personality  even  in 
ipite  of  theory  and  science ;  any  dread  or  hope 
:or  self  being  stronger  than  all  reasons  for  or 
against  it.  Why  she  should  suddenly  determine 
not  to  part  with  the  necklace  was  not  much 
•Icarcr  to  her  than  why  she  should  sometimes 
lave  been  frightened  to  find  herself  in  the  fields 
alone :  she  had  a  confused  state  of  emotion  about 
)eronda — was  it  wounded  pride  and  resentment, 
:>r  a  certain  awe  and  exceptional  trust  ?  It  was 


BOOK  HI.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


something  vague  and  yet  mastering,  which  im- 
pelled her  to  this  action  about  the  necklace. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  unmapped  country  with- 
in us  which  would  have  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count in  an  explanation  of  our  gusts  and  storms. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

How  trace  the  why  and  wherefore  in  a  mind  reduced 
to  the  barrenness  of  a  fastidious  egoism,  in  which  all 
direct  desires  are  dulled,  aud  have  dwindled  from  mo- 
tives into  a  vacillating  expectation  of  motives  :  a  mind 
made  up  of  moods,  where  a  fitful  impulse  springs  here 
and  there  conspicuously  rank  amidst  the  general  weedi- 
ness  ?  "Pis  a  condition  apt  to  befall  a  life  too  much  at 


A'am 


arge,  unmoulded  by  the  pressure  of  obligation.  A' 
deteriorex  omnes  sumus  liccnti(e,  snith  Terence  ;  or,  as 
a  more  familiar  tongue  might  deliver  it,  "As  you  like" 
is  a  bad  finger-post, 

POTENTATES  make  known  their  intentions  and 
affect  the  funds  at  a  small  expense  of  words.  So, 
when  Grandcourt,  after  learning  that  Gwendolen 
had  left  Leubronn,  incidentally  pronounced  that 
resort  of  fashion  a  beastly  hole  worse  than  Ba- 
den, the  remark  was  conclusive  to  Mr.  Lush  that 
his  patron  intended  straightway  to  return  to  Dip- 
low.  The  execution  was  sure  to  be  slower  than 
the  intention,  and  in  fact  Grandcourt  did  loiter 
through  the  next  day  without  giving  any  distinct 
orders  about  departure  —  perhaps  because  he  dis- 
cerned that  Lush  was  expecting  them  :  he  linger- 
ed over  his  toilet,  and  certainly  came  down  with 
a  faded  aspect  of  perfect  distinction  which  made 
fresh  complexions,  and  hands  with  the  blood  in 
them,  seem  signs  of  raw  vulgarity;  he  lingered 
on  the  terrace,  in  the  gambling-rooms,  in  the 
reading-room,  occupying  himself  in  being  indiffer- 
ent to  every  body  and  every  thing  around  him. 
When  he  met  Lady  Mallinger,  however,  he  took 
some  trouble  —  raised  his  hat,  paused,  and  proved 
that  he  listened  to  her  recommendation  of  the 
waters  by  replying,  "  Yes  ;  I  heard  somebody  say 
how  providential  it  was  that  there  always  hap- 
pened to  be  springs  at  gambling  places." 

"  Oh,  that  was  a  joke,"  said  innocent  Lady  Mai- 
linger,  misled  by  Grandcourt's  languid  serious- 
ness, "in  imitation  of  the  old  one  about  the 
towns  and  the  rivers,  you  know." 

"  Ah,  perhaps,"  said  Grandcourt,  without  change 
of  expression.  Lady  Mallinger  thought  this  worth 
telling  to  Sir  Hugo,  who  said,  "  Oh,  my  dear,  he  is 
not  a  fool.  You  must  not  suppose  that  he  can't 
see  a  joke.  He  can  play  his  cards  as  well  as 
most  of  us." 

"  He  has  never  seemed  .to  me  a  very  sensible 
man,"  said  Lady  Mallinger,  in  excuse  of  herself. 
She  had  a  secret  objection  to  meeting  Grandcourt, 
who  was  little  else  to  her  than  a  large  living  sign 
of  what  she  felt  to  be  her  failure  as  a  wife  —  the 
not  having  presented  Sir  Hugo  with  a  son.  Her 
constant  reflection  was  that  her  husband  might 
fairly  regret  his  choice,  and  if  he  had  not  been 
very  good,  might  have  treated  her  with  some 
roughness  in  consequence,  gentlemen  naturally 
disliking  to  be  disappointed. 

Deronda,  too,  had  a  recognition  from  Grand- 
court,  for  which  he  was  not  grateful,  though  he 
took  care  to  return  it  with  perfect  civility.  No 
reasoning  as  to  the  foundations  of  custom  could  do 
away  with  the  early-rooted  feeling  that  his  birth 
had  been  attended  with  injury  for  which  his  father 
was  to  blame  ;  and  seeing  that  but  for  this  injury 
Grandcourt's  prospect  might  have  been  his,  he 


was  proudly  resolute  not  to  behave  in  any  way 
that  might  be  interpreted  into  irritation  on  that 
score.  He  saw  a  very  easy  descent  into  mean 
unreasoning  rancor  and  triumph  in  others'  frus- 
tration ;  and  being  determined  not  to  go  down  that 
ugly  pit,  he  turned  his  back  on  it,  clinging  to  the 
kindlier  affections  within  him  as  a  possession. 
Pride  certainly  helped  him  well — the  pride  of  not 
recognizing  a  disadvantage  for  one's  self  which 
vulgar  minds  are  disposed  to  exaggerate,  such  as 
the  shabby  equipage  of  poverty :  he  would  not 
have  a  man  like  Grandcourt  suppose  himself 
envied  by  him.  But  there  is  no  guarding  against 
interpretation.  Grandcourt  did  believe  that  De- 
ronda, poor  devil,  who  he  had  no  doubt  was  his 
cousin  by  the  father's  side,  inwardly  winced  under 
their  mutual  position ;  wherefore  the  presence  of 
that  less  lucky  person  was  more  agreeable  to  him 
than,  it  would  otherwise  have  been.  An  imaginary 
envy,  the  idea  that  others  feel  their  comparative 
deficiency,  is  the  ordinary  cortege  of  egoism ;  and 
his  pet  dogs  were  not  the  only  beings  that  Grand- 
court  liked  to  feel  his  power  over  in  making  them 
jealous.  Hence  he  was  civil  enough  to  exchange 
several  words  with  Deronda  on  the  terrace  about 
the  hunting  round  Diplow,  and  even  said,  "  You 
had  better  come  over  for  a  run  or  two  when  the 
season  begins." 

Lush,  not  displeased  with  delay,  amused  him- 
self very  well,  partly  in  gossiping  with  Sir  Hugo 
and  in  answering  his  questions  about  Grandcourt's 
affairs  so  far  as  they  might  affect  his  willingness 
to  part'with  his  interest  in  Diplow.  Also  about 
Grandcourt's  personal  entanglements,  the  Baronet 
knew  enough  already  for  Lush  to  feel  released 
from  silence  on  a  sunny  autumn  day,  when  there 
was  nothing  more  agreeable  to  do  in  lounging 
promenades  than  to  speak  freely  of  a  tyrannous 
patron  behind  his  back.  Sir  Hugo  willingly  in- 
clined his  ear  to  a  little  good-humored  scandal, 
which  he  was  fond  of  calling  traits  de  mceurs ; 
but  he  was  strict  in  keeping  such  communications 
from  hearers  who  might  take  them  too  seriously. 
Whatever  knowledge  he  had  of  his  nephew's  se- 
crets, he  had  never  spoken  of  it  to  Deronda,  who 
considered  Grandcourt  a  pale-blooded  mortal,  but 
was  far  from  wishing  to  hear  how  the  red  cor- 
puscles had  been  washed  out  of  him.  It  was 
Lush's  policy  and  inclination  to  gratify  every  body 
when  he  had  no  reason  to  the  contrary ;  and  the 
Baronet  always  treated  him  well,  as  one  of  those 
easy-handled  personages  who,  frequenting  the  so- 
ciety of  gentlemen,  without  being  exactly  gentle- 
men themselves,  can  be  the  more  serviceable,  like 
the  second-best  articles  of  our  wardrobe,  which 
we  use  with  a  comfortable  freedom  from  anxiety. 

"  Well,  you  will  let  me  know  the  turn  of  events," 
said  Sir  Hugo,  "  if  this  marriage  seems  likely  to 
come  off  after  all,  or  if  any  thing  else  happens 
to  make  the  want  of  money  more  pressing.  My 
plan  would  be  much  better  for  him  than  burden- 
ng  Ryelands." 

"  That's  true,"  said  Lush  ;  "  only  it  must  not  be 
urged  on  him — just  placed  in  his  way  that  the 
scent  may  tickle  him.  Grandcourt  is  not  a  man 
to  be  always  led  by  what  makes  for  his  own  in- 
terest ;  especially  if  you  let  him  see  that  it  makes 
for  your  interest  too.  I'm  attached  to  him,  of 
course.  I've  given  up  every  thing  else  for  the 
sake  of  keeping  by  him,  and  it  has  lasted  a  good 
fifteen  years  now.  He  would  not  easily  get  any 
one  else  to  fill  my  place.  He's  a  peculiar  char- 


06 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


acter,  is  Henleigh  Grandcourt,  and  it  has  been 
growing  on  him  of  late  years.  However,  I'm  of 
a  constant  disposition,  and  I've  been  a  sort  of 
guardian  to  him  since  he  was  twenty :  an  uncom- 
monly fascinating  fellow  he  was  then,  to  be  sure 
— and  could  be  now,  if  he  liked.  I'm  attached 
to  him ;  and  it  would  be  a  good  deal  worse  for 
him  if  he  missed  me  at  his  elbow." 

Sir  Hugo  did  not  think  it  needful  to  express 
his  sympathy  or  even  assent,  and  perhaps  Lush 
himself  did  not  expect  this  sketch  of  his  motives 
to  be  taken  as  exact.  But  how  can  a  man  avoid 
himself  as  a  subject  in  conversation  ?  And  he 
must  make  some  sort  of  decent  toilet  in  words, 
as  in  cloth  and  linen.  Lush's  listener  was  not 
severe :  a  member  of  Parliament  could  allow  for 
the  necessities  of  verbal  toilet ;  and  the  dia- 
logue went  on  without  any  change  of  mutual  es- 
timate. 

However,  Lush's  easy  prospect  of  indefinite 
procrastination  was  cut  off  the  next  morning  by 
Grandcourt's  saluting  him  with  the  question, 

"  Are  you  making  all  the  arrangements  for  our 
starting  by  the  Paris  train  ?" 

"  I  didn't  know  you  meant  to  start,"  said  Lush, 
not  exactly  taken  by  surprise. 

"You  might  have  known,"  said  Grandcourt, 
looking  at  the  burned  length  of  his  cigar,  and 
speaking  in  that  lowered  tone  which  was  usual 
with  him  when  he  meant  to  express  disgust  and 
be  peremptory.  "Just  see  to  every  thing,  will 
you  ?  and  mind  no  brute  gets  into  the  same  car- 
riage with  us.  And  leave  my  P.P.C.  at  the  Mai- 
lingers'." 

In  consequence  they  were  at  Paris  the  next 
day;  but  here  Lush  was  gratified  by  the  pro- 
posal or  command  that  he  should  go  straight  on 
to  Diplow  and  see  that  every  thing  was  right, 
while  Grandcourt  and  the  valet  remained  behind  ; 
and  it  was  not  until  several  days  later  that  Lush 
received  the  telegram  ordering  the  carriage  to 
the  Wancester  station. 

He  had  used  the  interim  actively,  not  only  in 
carrying  out  Grandcourt's  orders  about  the  stud 
and  household,  but  in  learning  all  he  could  of 
Gwendolen,  and  how  things  were  going  on  at 
Offendene.  What  was  the  probable  effect  that 
the  news  of  the  family  misfortunes  would  have  on 
Grandcourt's  fitful  obstinacy  he  felt  to  be  quite 
incalculable.  So  far  as  the  girl's  poverty  might 
be  an  argument  that  she  would  accept  an  offer 
from  him  now  in  spite  of  any  previous  coyness, 
it  might  remove  that  bitter  objection  to  risk  a 
repulse  which  Lush  divined  to  be  one  of  Grand- 
court's  deterring  motives;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  certainty  of  acceptance  was  just  "  the  sort  of 
thing"  to  make  him  lapse  hither  and  thither  with 
no  more  apparent  will  than  a  moth.  Lush  had 
had  his  patron  under  close  observation  for  many 
years,  and  knew  him  perhaps  better  than  he  knew 
any  other  subject ;  but  to  know  Grandcourt  was 
to  doubt  what  he  would  do  in  any  particular  case. 
It  might  happen  that  he  would  behave  with  an 
apparent  magnanimity,  like  the  hero  of  a  modern 
French  drama,  whose  sudden  start  into  moral 
splendor,  after  much  lying  and  meanness,  leaves 
you  little  confidence  as  to  any  part  of  his  career 
that  may  follow  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  Indeed, 
what  attitude  would  have  been  more  honorable 
for  a  final  scene  than  that  of  declining  to  seek  an 
heiress  for  her  money,  and  determining  to  marry 
the  attractive  girl  who  had  none  ?  But  Lush  had 


some  general  certainties  about  Grandcourt,  and 
one  was  that  of  all  inward  movements  those  of 
generosity  were  the  least  likely  to  occur  in  him. 
Of  what  use,  however,  is  a  general  certainty  that 
an  insect  will  not  walk  with  his  head  hindmost, 
when  what  you  need  to  know  is  the  play  of  in- 
ward stimulus  that  sends  him  hither  and  thither 
in  a  net-work  of  possible  paths  ?  Thus  Lush 
was  much  at  fault  as  to  the  probable  issue  be- 
tween Grandcourt  and  Gwendolen,  when  what  he 
desired  was  a  perfect  confidence  that  they  would 
never  be  married.  He  would  have  consented 
willingly  that  Grandcourt  should  marry  an  heiress, 
or  that  he  should  marry  Mrs.  Glasher :  in  the  one 
match  there  would  have  been  the  immediate 
abundance  that  prospective  heirship  could  not 
supply,  in  the  other  there  would  have  been  the 
security  of  the  wife's  gratitude,  for  Lush  had 
always  been  Mrs.  Glasher's  friend ;  and  that  the 
future  Mrs.  Grandcourt  should  not  be  socially  re- 
ceived could  not  affect  his  private  comfort.  He 
would  not  have  minded,  either,  that  there  should 
be  no  marriage  in  question  at  all ;  but  he  felt 
himself  justified  in  doing  his  utmost  to  hinder 
a  marriage  with  a  girl  who  was  likely  to  bring 
nothing  but  trouble  to  her  husband — not  to  speak 
of  annoyance  if  not  ultimate  injury  to  her  hus- 
band's old  companion,  whose  future  Mr.  Lush 
earnestly  wished  to  make  as  easy  as  possible,  con- 
sidering that  he  had  well  deserved  such  compensa- 
tion for  leading  a  dog's  life,  though  that  of  a  dog 
who  enjoyed  many  tastes  undisturbed,  and  who 
profited  by  a  large  establishment.  He  wished  for 
himself  what  he  felt  to  be  good,  and  was  not 
conscious  of  wishing  harm  to  any  one  else;  un- 
less perhaps  it  were  just  now  a  little  harm  to  the 
inconvenient  and  impertinent  Gwendolen.  But 
the  easiest-humored  amateur  of  luxury  and  mu- 
sic, the  toad-eater  the  least  liable  to  nausea,  must 
be  expected  to  have  his  susceptibilities.  And 
Mr.  Lush  was  accustomed  to  be  treated  by  the 
world  in  general  as  an  apt,  agreeable  fellow :  he 
had  not  made  up  his  mind  to  be  insulted  by  more 
than  one  person. 

With  this  imperfect  preparation  of  a  war  policy, 
Lush  was  awaiting  Grandcourt's  arrival,  doing 
little  more  than  wondering  how  the  campaign 
would  begin.  The  first  day  Grandcourt  was  much 
occupied  with  the  stables,  and  among  other  things 
he  ordered  a  groom  to  put  a  side-saddle  on  Crite- 
rion and  let  him  review  the  horse's  paces.  This 
marked  indication  of  purpose  set  Lush  on  consid- 
ering over  again  whether  he  should  incur  the 
ticklish  consequences  of  speaking  first,  while  he 
was  still  sure  that  no  compromising  step  had  been 
taken ;  and  he  rose  the  next  morning  almost  re- 
solved that  if  Grandcourt  seemed  in  as  good  a 
humor  as  yesterday  and  entered  at  all  into  talk, 
he  would  let  drop  the  interesting  facts  about 
Gwendolen  and  her  family,  just  to  see  how  they 
would  work,  and  to  get  some  guidance.  But 
Grandcourt  did  not  enter  into  talk,  and  in  answer 
to  a  question  even  about  his  own  convenience,  no 
fish  could  have  maintained  a  more  unwinking 
silence.  After  he  had  read  his  letters  he  gave 
various  orders  to  be  executed  or  transmitted  by 
Lush,  and  then  thrust  his  shoulders  toward  that 
useful  person,  who  accordingly  rose  to  leave  the 
room.  But  before  he  was  out  of  the  door,  Grand- 
court  turned  his  head  slightly  and  gave  a  broken 
languid  "  Oh." 

"  What  is  it  ?"  said  Lush,  who,  it  must  have 


BOOK  HI.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


97 


been  observed,  did  not  take  his  dusty  puddings 
with  a  respectful  air. 

"  Shut  the  door,  will  you  ?  I  can't  speak  into 
the  corridor." 

Lush  closed  the  door,  came  forward,  and  chose 
to  sit  down. 

After  a  little  pause  Grandcourt  said,  "  Is  Miss 
Harleth  at  Offendene  ?"  He  was  quite  certain 
that  Lush  had  made  it  his  business  to  inquire 
about  her,  and  he  had  some  pleasure  in  thinking 
that  Lush  did  not  want  him  to  inquire. 

"  Well,  I  hardly  know,"  said  Lush,  carelessly. 
"The  family's  utterly  done  up.  They  and  the 
Gascoignes  too  have  lost  all  their  money.  It's 
owing  to  some  rascally  banking  business.  The 
poor  mother  hasn't  a  sow,  it  seems.  She  and  the 
girls  have  to  huddle  themselves  into  a  little  cot- 
tage like  a  laborer's." 

"Don't  lie  to  me,  if  you  please,"  said  Grand- 
court,  in  his  lowest  audible  tone.  "It's  not 
amusing,  and  it  answers  no  other  purpose." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  said  Lush,  more  nettled 
than  was  common  with  him — the  prospect  before 
hun  being  more  than  commonly  disturbing. 

"  Just  tell  me  the  truth,  will  you  ?" 

"  It's  no  invention  of  mine.  I  have  heard  the 
story  from  several — Bazley,  Brackenshaw's  man, 
for  one.  He  is  getting  a  new  tenant  for  Offen- 
dene." 

"I  don't  mean  that.  Is  Miss  Harleth  there, 
or  is  she  not  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  hi  his  former 
tone. 

"  Upon  my  soul,  I  can't  tell,"  said  Lush,  rather 
sulkily.  "  She  may  have  left  yesterday.  I  heard 
she  had  taken  a  situation  as  governess  ;  she  may 
be  gone  to  it  for  what  I  know.  But  if  you  want- 
ed to  see  her,  no  doubt  the  mother  would  send 
for  her  back."  This  sneer  slipped  off  his  tongue 
without  strict  intention. 

"Send  Hutchins  to  inquire  whether  she  will 
be  there  to-morrow." 

Lush  did  not  move.  Like  many  persons  who 
have  thought  over  beforehand  what  they  shall  say 
in  given  cases,  he  was  impelled  by  an  unexpected 
irritation  to  say  some  of  those  pre-arranged  things 
before  the  cases  were  given.  Grandcourt,  in  fact, 
was  likely  to  get  into  a  scrape  so  tremendous  that 
it  was  impossible  to  let  him  take  the  first  step 
toward  it  without  remonstrance.  Lush  retained 
enough  caution  to  use  a  tone  of  rational  friend- 
liness ;  still  he  felt  his  own  value  to  his  patron, 
and  was  prepared  to  be  daring. 

"It  would  be  as  well  for  you  to  remember, 
Grandcourt,  that  you  are  coming  under  closer  fire 
now.  There  can  be  none  of  the  ordinary  flirting 
done,  which  may  mean  every  thing  or  nothing. 
You  must  make  up  your  mind  whether  you  wish 
to  be  accepted;  and  more  than  that,  how  you 
would  like  being  refused.  Either  one  or  the  oth- 
er. You  can't  be  philandering  after  her  again 
for  six  weeks." 

Grandcourt  said  nothing,  but  pressed  the  news- 
paper down  on  his  knees  and  began  to  light  an- 
other cigar.  Lush  took  this  as  a  sign  that  he 
was  willing  to  listen,  and  was  the  more  bent  on 
using  the  opportunity ;  he  wanted,  if  possible,  to 
find  out  which  would  be  the  more  potent  cause 
of  hesitation — probable  acceptance  or  probable 
refusal. 

"  Every  thing  has  a  more  serious  look  now  than 
it  had  before.  There  is  her  family  to  be  provided 
for.  You  could  not  let  your  wife's  mother  live 
G 


in  beggary.  It  will  be  a  confoundedly  hampering 
affair.  Marriage  will  pin  you  down  in  a  way  you 
haven't  been  used  to ;  and  in  point  of  money  you 
have  not  too  much  elbow-room.  And,  after  all, 
what  will  you  get  by  it  ?  You  are  master  over 
your  estates,  present  or  future,  as  far  as  choosing 
your  heir  goes ;  it's  a  pity  to  go  on  encumbering 
them  for  a  mere  whim,  which  you  may  repent  of 
in  a  twelvemonth.  I  should  be  sorry  to  see  you 
making  a  mess  of  your  lif  e  in  that  way.  If  there 
were  any  thing  solid  to  be  gained  by  the  marriage, 
that  would  be  a  different  affair." 

Lush's  tone  had  gradually  become  more  and 
more  unctuous  in  its  friendliness  of  remonstrance, 
and  he  was  almost  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  he 
was  merely  gambling  in  argument.  When  he  left 
off,  Grandcourt  took  his  cigar  out  of  his  mouth, 
and  looking  steadily  at  the  moist  end  while  he 
adjusted  the  leaf  with  his  delicate  finger-tips,  said, 

"  I  knew  before  that  you  had  an  objection  to 
my  marrying  Miss  Harleth."  Here  he  made  a 
little  pause,  before  he  continued,  "But  I  never 
considered  that  a  reason  against  it." 

"  I  never  supposed  you  did,"  answered  Lush, 
not  unctuously,  but  dryly.  "It  was  not  that  I 
urged  as  a  reason.  I  should  have  thought  it 
might  have  been  a  reason  against  it,  after  all 
your  experience,  that  you  would  be  acting  like 
the  hero  of  a  ballad,  and- making  yourself  absurd 
— and  all  for  what?  You  know  you  couldn't 
make  up  your  mind  before.  It's  impossible  you 
can  care  much  about  her.  And  as  for  the  tricks 
she  is  likely  to  play,  you  may  judge  of  that  from 
what  you  heard  at  Leubronn.  However,  what  I 
wished  to  point  out  to  you  was  that  there  can  be 
no  shilly-shally  now." 

"Perfectly,"  said  Grandcourt, looking  round  at 
Lush  and  fixing  hun  with  narrow  eyes ;  "  I  don't 
intend  that  there  should  be.  I  dare  say  it's  dis- 
agreeable to  you.  But  if  you  suppose  I  care  a 
damn  for  that,  you  are  most  stupendously  mis- 
taken." 

"  Oh,  well,"  said  Lush,  rising  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  and  feeling  some  latent  venom  still 
within  him,  "  if  you  have  made  up  your  mind ! — 
only  there's  another  aspect  of  the  affair.  I  have 
been  speaking  on  the  supposition  that  it  was  ab- 
solutely certain  she  would  accept  you,  and  that 
destitution  would  have  no  choice.  But  I  am  not 
so  sure  that  the  young  lady  is  to  be  counted  on. 
She  is  kittle  cattle  to  shoe,  I  think.  And  she  had 
her  reasons  for  running  away  before."  Lush  had 
moved  a  step  or  two  till  he  stood  nearly  in  front 
of  Grandcourt,  though  at  some  distance  from  him. 
He  did  not  feel  himself  much  restrained  by  con- 
sequences, being  aware  that  the  only  strong  hold 
he  had  on  his  present  position  was  his  serviceable- 
ness  ;  and  even  after  a  quarrel,  the  want  of  hun 
was  likely  sooner  or  later  to  recur.  He  foresaw 
that  Gwendolen  would  cause  him  to  be  ousted  for 
a  time,  and  his  temper  at  this  moment  urged  him 
to  risk  a  quarrel. 

"  She  had  her  reasons,"  he  repeated,  more  sig- 
nificantly. 

"  I  had  come  to  that  conclusion  before,"  said 
Grandcourt,  with  contemptuous  irony. 

"  Yes,  but  I  hardly  think  you  know  what  her 
reasons  were." 

"You  do,  apparently,"  said  Grandcourt,  not 
betraying  by  so  much  as  an  eyelash  that  he  cared 
for  the  reasons. 

"  Yes,  and  you  had  better  know  too,  that  you 


98 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


may  judge  of  the  influence  you  have  over  her,  if 
she  swallows  her  reasons  a"nd  accepts  you.  For 
my  own  part,  I  would  take  odds  against  it.  She 
saw  Lydia  in  Cardell  Chase,  and  heard  the  whole 
story." 

Grandcourt  made  no  immediate  answer,  and 
only  went  on  smoking.  He  was  so  long  before 
he  spoke,  that  Lush  moved  about  and  looked  out 
of  the  windows,  unwilling  to  go  away  without 
seeing  some  effect  of  his  daring  move.  He  had 
expected  that  Grandcourt  would  tax  him  with 
having  contrived  the  affair,  since  Mrs.  Glasher 
was  then  living  at  Gadsmere,  a  hundred  miles 
off,  and  he  was  prepared  to  admit  the  fact :  what 
he  cared  about  was  that  Grandcourt  should  be 
staggered  by  the  sense  that  his  intended  advances 
must  be  made  to  a  girl  who  had  that  knowledge 
in  her  mind  and  had  been  scared  by  it.  At 
length  Grandcourt,  seeing  Lush  turn  toward  him, 
looked  at  him  again  and  said,  contemptuously, 
"What  follows?" 

Here  certainly  was  a  "mate"  in  answer  to 
Lush's  "check;"  and  though  his  exasperation 
with  Grandcourt  was  perhaps  stronger  than  it 
had  ever  been  before,  it  would  have  been  mere 
idiocy  to  act  as  if  any  further  move  could  be  use- 
ful. He  gave  a  slight  shrug  with  one  shoulder 
and  was  going  to  walk  away,  when  Grandcourt, 
turning  on  his  seat  toward  the  table,  said,  as 
quietly  as  if  nothing  had  occurred,  "  Oblige  me 
by  pushing  that  pen  and  paper  here,  will  you  ?" 

No  thunderous,  bullying  superior  could  have 
exercised  the  imperious  spell  that  Grandcourt 
did.  Why,  instead  of  being  obeyed,  he  had  never 
been  told  to  go  to  a  warmer  place,  was  perhaps  a 
mystery  to  several  who  found  themselves  obeying 
him.  The  pen  and  paper  were  pushed  to  him,  and 
as  he  took  them  he  said,  "Just  wait  for  this  letter." 

He  scrawled  with  ease,  and  the  brief  note  was 
quickly  addressed.  "  Let  Hutchins  go  with  it  at 
once,  will  you  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  pushing  the 
letter  away  from  him. 

As  Lush  had  expected,  it  was  addressed  to  Miss 
Harleth,  Offendene.  When  his  irritation  had 
cooled  down  he  was  glad  there  had  been  no 
explosive  quarrel ;  but  he  felt  sure  that  there  was 
a  notch  made  against  him,  and  that  somehow  or 
other  he  was  intended  to  pay.  It  was  also  clear 
to  him  that  the  immediate  effect  of  his  revelation 
had  been  to  harden  Grandcourt's  previous  deter- 
mination. But  as  to  the  particular  movements 
which  made  this  process  in  his  baffling  mind, 
Lush  could  only  toss  up  his  chin  in  despair  of  a 
theory. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

He  brings  white  asses  laden  with  the  freight 
Of  Tyrian  vessels,  purple,  cold,  and  balm. 
To  bribe  my  will :  I'll  bid  them  chase  him  forth, 
Nor  let  him  breathe  the  taint  of  his  surmise 
On  my  secure  resolve. 

Ay,  'tis  secure ; 

'And  therefore  let  him  come  to  spread  his  freight. 
For  firmness  hath  its  appetite,  and  crave* 
The  stronger  lure,  more  strongly  to  resist; 
Would  know  the  touch  of  gold  to  fling  it  off ; 
Scent  wine  to  feel  its  lip  the  soberer; 
Behold  soft  byssun,  ivory,  and  plnmes 
To  say,  "They're  fair,  but  I  will  none  of  them," 
And  float  Enticement  in  the  very  face. 

MB.  GASCOIONK  one  day  came  to  Offendene 
with  what  he  felt  to  be  the  satisfactory  news 
that  Mrs.  Mompert  had  fixed  Tuesday  in  the  fol- 


lowing week  for  her  interview  with  Gwendolen  at 
Wancester.  He  said  nothing  of  his  having  inci- 
dentally heard  that  Mr.  Grandcourt  had  returned 
to  Diplow,  knowing  no  more  than  she  did  that 
Leubronn  had  been  the  goal  of  her  admirer's 
journeying,  and  feeling  that  it  would  be  unkind 
uselessly  to  revive  the  memory  of  a  brilliant 
prospect  under  the  present  reverses.  In  his  secret 
soul  he  thought  of  his  niece's  unintelligible  ca- 
price with  regret,  but  he  vindicated  her  to  himself 
by  considering  that  Grandcourt  had  been  the  first 
to  behave  oddly,  in  suddenly  walking  away  when 
there  had  been  the  best  opportunity  for  crowning 
his  marked  attentions.  The  Rector's  practical 
judgment  told  him  that  his  chief  duty  to  his  niece 
now  was  to  encourage  her  resolutely  to  face  the 
change  in  her  lot,  since  there  was  no  manifest 
promise  of  any  event  that  would  avert  it. 

"  You  will  find  an  interest  in  varied  experience, 
my  dear,  and  I  have  no  doubt  you  will  be  a  more 
valuable  woman  for  having  sustained  such  a  part 
as  you  are  called  to." 

"  I  can  not  pretend  to  believe  that  I  shall  like 
it,"  said  Gwendolen,  for  the  first  time  showing 
her  uncle  some  petulance.  "But  I  am  quite 
aware  that  I  am  obliged  to  bear  ifc." 

She  remembered  having  submitted  to  his  ad- 
monition on  a  different  occasion,  when  she  was 
expected  to  like  a  very  different  prospect. 

"And  your  good  sense  will  teach  you  to  behave 
suitably  under  it,"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  with  a 
shade  more  gravity.  "  I  feel  sure  that  Mrs.  Mom- 
pert  will  be  pleased  with  you.  You  will  know 
how  to  conduct  yourself  to  a  woman  who  holds 
in  all  senses  the  relation  of  superior  to  you. 
This  trouble  has  come  on  you  young,  but  that 
makes  it  in  some  respects  easier,  and  there  is 
benefit  in  all  chastisement  if  we  adjust  our  minds 
to  it." 

This  was  precisely  what  Gwendolen  was  un- 
able to  do ;  and  after  her  uncle  was  gone,  the 
bitter  tears,  which  had  rarely  come  during  the 
late  trouble,  rose  and  fell  slowly  as  she  sat  alone. 
Her  heart  denied  that  the  trouble  was  easier  be- 
cause she  was  young.  When  was  she  to  have 
any  happiness,  if  it  did  not  come  while  she  was 
young?  Not  that  her  visions  of  possible  happi- 
ness for  herself  were  as  unmixed  with  necessary 
evil  as  they  used  to  be — not  that  she  could  still 
imagine  herself  plucking  the  fruits  of  life  with- 
out suspicion  of  their  core.  But  this  general 
disenchantment  with  the  world — nay,  with  her- 
self, since  it  appeared  that  she  was  not  made  for 
easy  pre-eminence — only  intensified  her  sense  of 
forlornness:  it  was  a  visibly  sterile  distance  in- 
closing the  dreary  path  at  her  feet,  in  which  she 
had  no  courage  to  tread.  She  was  in  that  first 
crisis  of  passionate  youthful  rebellion  against 
what  is  not  fitly  called  pain,  but  rather  the 
absence  of  joy — that  first  rage  of  disappoint- 
ment in  life's  morning,  which  we  whom  the  years 
have  subdued  are  apt  to  remember  but  dimly 
as  part  of  our  own  experience,  and  ao  to  be  in- 
tolerant of  its  self-inclosed  unreasonableness  and 
impiety.  What  passion  seems  more  absurd,  when 
•e  have  got  outside  it  and  looked  at  calamity  as 
a  collective  risk,  than  this  amazed  anguish  that 
I,  and  not  Thou,  He,  or  She,  should  be  just  the 
smitten  one  ?  Yet  perhaps  some  who  have  after- 
ward made  themselves  a  willing  fence  before  the 
breast  of  another,  and  have  carried  their  own 
heart-wound  in  heroic  silence — some  who  have 


BOOK  IE.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


made  their  latter  deeds  great,  nevertheless  began 
with  this  angry  amazement  at  their  own  smart, 
and  on  the  mere  denial  of  their  fantastic  desires 
raged  as  if  under  the  sting  of  wasps  which  re- 
duced the  universe  for  them  to  an  unjust  inflic- 
tion of  pain.  This  was  nearly  poor  Gwendolen's 
condition.  What  though  such  a  reverse  as  hers 
had  often  happened  to  other  girls?  The  one 
point  she  had  been  all  her  life  learning  to  care 
for  was  that  it  had  happened  to  her :  it  WAS  what 
she  felt  under  Klesmer's  demonstration  that  she 
was  not  remarkable  enough  to  command  fortune 
by  force  of  will  and  merit ;  it  was  what  she  would 
feel  under  the  rigors  of  Mrs.  Mompert's  con- 
stant expectation,  under  the  dull  demand  that 
she  should  be  cheerful  with  three  Misses  Mom- 
pert,  under  the  necessity  of  showing  herself  en- 
tirely submissive,  and  keeping  her  thoughts  to 
herself.  To  be  a  queen  disthroned  is  not  so  hard 
as  some  other  down-stepping :  imagine  one  who 
had  been  made  to  believe  in  his  own  divinity  find- 
ing all  homage  withdrawn,  and  himself  unable  to 
perform  a  miracle  that  would  recall  the  homage 
and  restore  his  own  confidence.  Something  akin 
to  this  illusion  and  this  helplessness  had  befallen 
the  poor  spoiled  child,  with  the  lovely  lips  and 
eyes  and  the  majestic  figure — which  seemed  now 
to  have  no  magic  in  them. 

She  rose  from  the  low  ottoman  where  she  had 
been  sitting  purposeless,  and  walked  up  and  down 
the  drawing-room,  resting  her  elbow  on  one  palm 
while  she  leaned  down  her  cheek  on  the  other, 
and  a  slow  tear  fell.  She  thought,  "  I  have  al- 
ways, ever  since  I  was  little,  felt  that  mamma 
was  not  a  happy  woman ;  and  now  I  dare  say  I 
shall  be  more  unhappy  than  she  has  been."  Her 
mind  dwelt  for  a  few  moments  on  the  picture  of 
herself  losing  her  youth  and  ceasing  to  enjoy — 
not  minding  whether  she  did  this  or  that :  but 
such  picturing  inevitably  brought  back  the  im- 
age of  her  mother.  "  Poor  mamma !  it  will  be 
still  worse  for  her  now.  I  can  get  a  little  mon- 
ey for  her— that  is  all  I  shall  care  about  now." 
And  then,  with  an  entirely  new  movement  of 
her  imagination,  she  saw  her  mother  getting 
quite  old  and  white,  and  herself  no  longer  young 
but  faded,  and  their  two  faces  meeting  still  with 
memory  and  love,  and  she  knowing  what  was  in 
her  mother's  mind — "Poor  Gwen  too  is  sad 
and  faded  now" — and  then  for  the  first  time  she 
sobbed,  not  in  anger,  but  with  a  sort  of  tender 
misery. 

Her  face  was  toward  the  door,  and  she  saw  her 
mother  enter.  She  barely  saw  that ;  for  her  eyes 
were  large  with  tears,  and  she  pressed  her  hand- 
kerchief against  them  hurriedly.  Before  she  took 
it  away  she  felt  her  mother's  arms  round  her,  and 
this  sensation,  which  seemed  a  prolongation  of 
her  inward  vision,  overcame  her  will  to  be  reti- 
cent :  she  sobbed  anew  in  spite  of  herself,  as  they 
pressed  their  cheeks  together. 

Mrs.  Davilow  had  brought  something  in  her 
hand  which  had  already  caused  her  an  agitating 
anxiety,  and  she  dared  not  speak  until  her  darling 
had  become  calmer.  But  Gwendolen,  with  whom 
weeping  had  always  been  a  painful  manifestation 
to  be  resisted  if  possible,  again  pressed  her  hand- 
kerchief against  her  eyes,  and  with  a  deep  breath 
drew  her  head  backward  and  looked  at  her  moth- 
er, who  was  pale  and  tremulous. 

"It  was  nothing,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen, 
thinking  that  her  mother  had  been  moved  in  this 


way  simply  by  finding  her  in  distress.  "  It  is  all 
over  now." 

But  Mrs.  Davilow  had  withdrawn  her  arms,  and 
Gwendolen  perceived  a  letter  hi  her  hand. 

"  What  is  that  letter  ? — worse  news  still  ?"  she 
asked,  with  a  touch  of  bitterness. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  will  think  it,  dear," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow,  keeping  the  letter  in  her  hand. 
"  You  will  hardly  guess  where  it  comes  from." 

"  Don't  ask  me  to  guess  any  thing,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, rather  impatiently,  as  if  a  bruise  were  be- 
ing pressed. 

"  It  is  addressed  to  you,  dear." 

Gwendolen  gave  the  slightest  perceptible  toss 
of  the  head. 

"It  comes  from  Diplow,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow, 
giving  her  the  letter. 

She  knew  Grandcouit's  indistinct  handwriting, 
and  her  mother  was  not  surprised  to  see  her  blush 
deeply ;  but  watching  her  as  she  read,  and  won- 
dering much  what  was  the  purport  of  the  letter, 
she  saw  the  color  die  out.  Gwendolen's  lips  even 
were  pale  as  she  turned  the  open  note  toward  her 
mother.  The  words  were  few  and  formal. 

"  Mr.  Grandcourt  presents  his  compliments  to 
Miss  Harleth,  and  begs  to  know  whether  he  may 
be  permitted  to  call  at  Offendene  to-morrow  after 
two,  and  to  see  her  alone.  Mr.  Grandcourt  has 
just  returned  from  Leubronn.  where  he  had  hoped 
to  find  Miss  Harleth." 

Mrs.  Davilow  read,  and  then  looked  at  her 
daughter  inquiringly,  leaving  the  note  in  her 
hand.  Gwendolen  let  it  fall  on  the  floor,  and 
turned  away. 

"  It  must  be  answered,  darling,"  said  Mrs.  Davi- 
low, timidly.  "  The  man  waits." 

Gwendolen  sank  on  the  settee,  clasped  her 
hands,  and  looked  straight  before  her,  not  at  her 
mother.  She  had  the  expression  of  one  who  had 
been  startled  by  a  sound  and  was  listening  to  know 
what  would  come  of -it.  The  sudden  change  of 
the  situation  was  bewildering.  A  few  minutes  be- 
fore she  was  looking  along  an  inescapable  path 
of  repulsive  monotony,  with  hopeless  inward  re- 
bellion against  the  imperious  lot  which  left  her 
no  choice :  and,  lo  !  now  a  moment  of  choice  was 
come.  Yet — was  it  triumph  she  felt  most  or  ter- 
ror ?  Impossible  for  Gwendolen  not  to  feel  some 
triumph  in  a  tribute  to  her  power  at  a  time  when 
she  was  first  tasting  the  bitterness  of  insignifi- 
cance :  again  she  seemed  to  be  getting  a  sort  of 
empire  over  her  own  life.  But  how  to  use  it  ? 
Here  came  the  terror.  Quick,  quick,  like  pictures 
in  a  book  beaten  open  with  a  sense  of  hurry,  came 
back  vividly,  yet  in  fragments,  all  that  she  had 
gone  through  in  relation  to  Grandcourt — the  al- 
lurements, the  vacillations,  the  resolve  to  accede, 
the  final  repulsion ;  the  incisive  face  of  that  dark- 
eyed  lady  with  the  lovely  boy;  her  own  pledge 
(was  it  a  pledge  not  to  marry  him  ?) — the  new  dis- 
belief in  the  worth  of  men  and  things  for  which 
that  scene  of  disclosure  had  become  a  symbol. 
That  unalterable  experience  made  a  vision  at 
which  in  the  first  agitated  moment,  before  tem- 
pering reflections  could  suggest  themselves,  her 
native  terror  shrank. 

Where  was  the  good  of  choice  coming  again  ? 
What  did  she  wish  ?  Any  thing  different  ?  No ! 
and  yet  in  the  dark  seed-growths  of  conscious- 
ness a  new  wish  was  forming  itself — "I  wish  I 


100 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


had  never  known  it !"  Something,  any  thing,  she 
wished  for  that  would  have  saved  her  from  the 
dread  to  let  Grandcourt  come. 

It  was  no  long  while,  yet  it  seemed  long  to 
Mrs.  Davilow,  before  she  thought  it  well  to  say, 
gently, 

"  It  will  be  necessary  for  you  to  write,  dear. 
Or  shall  I  write  an  answer  for  you — which  you 
will  dictate  ?" 

"No,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  drawing  a 
deep  breath.  "But  please  lay  me  out  the  pen 
and  paper." 

That  was  gaining  time.  Was  she  to  decline 
Grandcourt's  visit — close  the  shutters — not  even 
look  out  on  what  would  happen  ? — though  with 
the  assurance  that  she  should  remain  just  where 
she  was  ?  The  young  activity  within  her  made  a 
warm  current  through  her  terror,  and  stirred  to- 
ward something  that  would  be  an  event — toward 
an  opportunity  in  which  she  could  look  and  speak 
with  the  former  effectiveness.  The  interest  of 
the  morrow  was  no  longer  at  a  dead  lock. 

"  There  is  really  no  reason  on  earth  why  you 
should  be  so  alarmed  at  the  man's  waiting  a  few 
minutes,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  remonstrant- 
ly,  as  Mrs.  Davilow,  having  prepared  the  writing 
materials,  looked  toward  her  expectantly.  "  Serv- 
ants expect  nothing  else  than  to  wait.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  I  must  write  on  the  instant." 

"  No,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  in  the  tone  of 
one  corrected,  turning  to  sit  down  and  take  up  a 
bit  of  work  that  lay  at  hand ;  "  he  can  wait 
another  quarter  of  an  hour,  if  you  like." 

It  was  very  simple  speech  and  action  on  her 
part,  but  it  was  what  might  have  been  subtly  cal- 
culated. Gwendolen  felt  a  contradictory  desire 
to  be  hastened :  hurry  would  save  her  from  de- 
liberate choice. 

"  I  did  not  mean  him  to  wait  long  enough  for 
that  needle-work  to  be  finished,"  she  said,  lifting 
her  hands  to  stroke  the  backward  curves  of  her 
hair,  while  she  rose  from  her  seat  and  stood  still. 

"But  if  you  don't  feel  able  to  decide?"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  sympathizingly. 

"I  must  decide,"  said  Gwendolen,  walking  to 
the  writing  table  and  seating  herself.  All  the 
while  there  was  a  busy  under-current  in  her,  like 
the  thought  of  a  man  who  keeps  up  a  dialogue 
while  he  is  considering  how  he  can  slip  away. 
Why  should  she  net  let  him  come  ?  It  bound 
her  to  nothing.  He  had  been  to  Leubronn  after 
her :  of  course  he  meant  a  direct  unmistakable 
renewal  of  the  suit  which  before  had  been  only 
implied.  What  then?  She  could  reject  him. 
Why  was  she  to  deny  herself  the  freedom  of  do- 
ing this— which  she  would  like  to  do  ? 

"If  Mr.  Grandcourt  has  only  just  returned 
from  Leubronn,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  observing 
that  Gwendolen  leaned  back  in  her  chair  after 
taking  the  pen  in  her  hand — "  I  wonder  whether 
he  has  heard  of  our  misfortunes." 

"  That  could  make  no  difference  to  a  man  in  his 
position,"  said  Gwendolen,  rather  contemptuously. 

"  It  would,  to  some  men,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow. 
"  They  would  not  like  to  take  a  wife  from  a  fam- 
ily in  a  state  of  beggary  almost,  as  we  are.  Here 
we  are  at  Offendene  with  a  great  shell  over  us  as 
usual.  But  just  imagine  his  finding  us  at  Saw- 
yer's Cottage!  Most  men  are  afraid  of  being 
bored  or  taxed  by  a  wife's  family.  If  Mr.  Grand- 
court  did  know,  I  think  it  a  strong  proof  of  his 
attachment  to  you." 


Mrs.  Davilow  spoke  with  unusual  emphasis :  it 
was  the  first  time  she  had  ventured  to  say  any 
thing  about  Grandcourt  which  would  necessarily 
seem  intended  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  him, 
her  habitual  impression  being  that  such  argu- 
ments would  certainly  be  useless  and  might  be 
worse.  The  effect  of  her  words  now  was  stronger 
than  she  could  imagine :  they  raised  a  new  set  of 
possibilities  in*  Gwendolen's  mind — a  vision  of 
what  Grandcourt  might  do  for  her  mother  if  she, 
Gwendolen,  did — what  she  was  not  going  to  do. 
She  was  so  moved  by  a  new  rush  of  ideas  that, 
like  one  conscious  of  being  urgently  called  away, 
she  felt  that  the  immediate  task  must  be  hasten- 
ed :  the  letter  must  be  written,  else  it  might  be 
endlessly  deferred.  After  all,  she  acted  in  a  hur- 
ry, as  she  had  wished  to  do.  To  act  hi  a  hurry 
was  to  have  a  reason  for  keeping  away  from  an 
absolute  decision,  and  to  leave  open  as  many  is- 
sues as  possible. 

She  wrote :  "  Miss  Harleth  presents  her  com- 
pliments to  Mr.  Grandcourt.  She  will  be  at  home 
after  two  o'clock  to-morrow." 

Before  addressing  the  note  she  said,  "Pray 
ring  the  bell,  mamma,  if  there  is  any  one  to  an- 
swer it."  She  really  did  not  know  who  did  the 
work  of  the  house. 

It  was  not  till  after  the  letter  had  been  taken 
away  and  Gwendolen  had  risen  again,  stretching 
out  one  arm  and  then  resting  it  on  her  head,  with 
a  long  moan  which  had  a  sound  of  relief  in  it, 
that  Mrs.  Davilow  ventured  to  ask, 

"  What  did  you  say,  Gwen  ?" 

"I  said  that  I  should  be  at  home,"  answered 
Gwendolen,  rather  loftily.  Then,  after  a  pause, 
"  You  must  not  expect,  because  Mr.  Grandcourt 
is  coming,  that  any  thing  is  going  to  happen, 
mamma." 

"  I  don't  allow  myself  to  expect  any  thing,  dear. 
I  desire  you  to  follow  your  own  feeling.  You 
have  never  told  me  what  that  was." 

"What  is  the  use  of  telling?"  said  Gwendo- 
len, hearing  a  reproach  in  that  true  statement. 
"  When  I  have  any  thing  pleasant  to  tell,  you 
may  be  sure  I  will  tell  you." 

"But  Mr.  Grandcourt  will  consider  that  you 
have  already  accepted  him,  in  allowing  him  to 
come.  His  note  tells  you  plainly  enough  that  ho 
is  coming  to  make  you  an  offer." 

"  Very  well ;  and  I  wish  to  have  the  pleasure 
of  refusing  him." 

Mrs.  Davilow  looked  up  in  wonderment,  but 
Gwendolen  implied  her  wish  not  to  be  questioned 
further  by  saying, 

"  Put  down  that  detestable  needle- work,  and  let 
us  walk  in  the  avenue.  I  am  stifled." 


CHAPTER  XXVH. 

Desire  has  trimmed  the  Balls,  and  Circumstance 
Brings  but  the  breeze  to  fill  them. 

WHILE  Grandcourt,  on  his  beautiful  black 
Yarico,  the  groom  behind  him  on  Criterion,  was 
taking  the  pleasant  ride  from  Diplow  to  Offen- 
dene, Gwendolen  was  seated  before  the  mirror 
hile  her  mother  gathered  up  the  lengthy  mass 
of  light  brown  hair  which  she  had  been  carefully 
brushing. 

"Only  gather  it  up  easily  and  make  a  coil, 
mamma,"  said  Gwendolen. 


BOOK  HI.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


101 


"  Let  me  bring  you  some  ear-rings,  Gwen,"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  when  the  hair  was  adjusted,  and 
they  were  both  looking  at  the  reflection  in  the 
glass.  It  was  impossible  for  them  not  to  notice 
that  the  eyes  looked  brighter  than  they  had  done 
of  late,  that  there  seemed  to  be  a  shadow  lifted 
from  the  face,  leaving  all  the  lines  once  more  in 
their  placid  youthfulness.  The  mother  drew  some 
inferences  that  made  her  voice  rather  cheerful. 
"  You  do  want  your  ear-rings  ?" 

"  No,  mamma ;  I  shall  not  wear  any  ornaments, 
and  I  shall  put  on  my  black  silk.  Black  is  the 
only  wear  when  one  is  going  to  refuse  an  offer," 
said  Gwendolen,  with  one  of  her  old  smiles  at  her 
mother,  while  she  rose  to  throw  off  her  dressing- 
gown. 

"  Suppose  the  offer  is  not  made,  after  all,"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  not  without  a  sly  intention. 

"  Then  that  will  be  because  I  refuse  it  before- 
hand," said  Gwendolen.  "  It  comes  to  the  same 
thing." 

There  was  a  proud  little  toss  of  her  head  as 
she  said  this ;  and  when  she  walked  down  stairs 
in  her  long  black  robes,  there  was  just  that  firm 
poise  of  head  and  elasticity  of  form  which  had 
lately  been  missing,  as  in  a  parched  plant.  Her 
mother  thought :  "  She  is  quite  herself  again.  It 
must  be  pleasure  in  his  coming.  Can  her  mind 
be  really  made  up  against  him  ?" 

Gwendolen  would  have  been  rather  angry  if 
that  thought  had  been  uttered ;  perhaps  all  the 
more  because  through  the  last  twenty  hours,  with 
a  brief  interruption  of  sleep,  she  had  been  so  oc- 
cupied with  perpetually  alternating  images  and 
arguments  for  and  against  the  possibility  of  her 
marrying  Grandcourt,  that  the  conclusion  which 
she  had  determined  on  beforehand  ceased  to  have 
any  hold  on  her  consciousness :  the  alternate  dip 
of  counterbalancing  thoughts  begotten  of  coun- 
terbalancing desires  had  brought  her  into  a  state 
in  which  no  conclusion  could  look  fixed  to  her. 
She  would  have  expressed  her  resolve  as  before ; 
but  it  was  a  form  out  of  which  the  blood  had 
been  sucked — no  more  a  part  of  quivering  life 
than  the  "God's  will  be  done"  of  one  who  is 
eagerly  watching  chances.  She  did  not  mean  to 
accept  Grandcourt ;  from  the  first  moment  of  re- 
ceiving his  letter  she  had  meant  to  refuse  him; 
still,  that  could  not  but  prompt  her  to  look  the 
unwelcome  reasons  full  in  the  face  until  she  had 
a  little  less  .awe  of  them,  could  not  hinder  her 
imagination  from  filling  out  her  knowledge  in 
various  ways,  some  of  which  seemed  to  change 
the  aspect  of  what  she  knew.  By  dint  of  look- 
ing at  a  dubious  object  with  a  constructive  im- 
agination, one  can  give  it  twenty  different  shapes. 
Her  indistinct  grounds  of  hesitation  before  the 
interview  at  the  Whispering  Stones,  at  present 
counted  for  nothing;  they  were  all  merged  in 
the  final  repulsion.  If  it  had  not  been  for  that 
day  in  Cardell  Chase,  she  said  to  herself  now, 
there  would  have  been  no  obstacle  to  her  mar- 
rying Grandcourt.  On  that  day  and  after  it  she 
had  not  reasoned  and  balanced :  she  had  acted 
with  a  force  of  impulse  against  which  all  question- 
ing was  no  more  than  a  voice  against  a  torrent. 
The  impulse  had  come,  not  only  from  her  maid- 
enly pride  and  jealousy,  not  only  from  the  shock 
of  another  woman's  calamity  thrust  close  on  her 
vision,  but  from  her  dread  of  wrong-doing,  which 
was  vague,  it  is  true,  and  aloof  from  the  daily  de- 
tails of  her  life,  but  not  the  less  strong.  What- 


ever was  accepted  as  consistent  with  being  a  lady 
she  had  no  scruple  about ;  but  from  the  dim  re- 
gion of  what  was  called  disgraceful,  wrong,  guilty, 
she  shrank  with  mingled  pride  and  terror;  and 
even  apart  from  shame,  her  feeling  would  have 
made  her  place  any  deliberate  injury  of  another 
in  the  region  of  guilt. 

But  now — did  she  know  exactly  what  was  the 
state  of  the  case  with  regard  to  M'rs.  Glasher  and 
her  children  ?  She  had  given  a  sort  of  promise — 
had  said,  "  I  will  not  interfere  with  your  wishes." 
But  would  another  woman  who  married  Grand- 
court  be  in  fact  the  decisive  obstacle  to  her  wish- 
es, or  be  doing  her  and  her  boy  any  real  injury  ? 
Might  it  not  be  just  as  well,  nay,  better,  that 
Grandcourt  should  marry  ?  For  what  could  not 
a  woman  do  when  she  was  married,  if  she  knew 
how  to  assert  herself?  Here  all  was  construct- 
ive imagination.  Gwendolen  had  about  as  accu- 
rate a  conception  of  marriage — 'that  is  to  say,  of 
the  mutual  influences,  demands,  duties  of  man 
and  woman  in  the  state  of  matrimony — as  she 
had  of  magnetic  currents  and  the  law  of  storms. 

"Mamma  managed  badly,"  was  her  way  of 
summing  up  what  she  had  seen  of  her  mother's 
experience :  she  herself  would  manage  quite  dif- 
ferently. And  the  trials  of  matrimony  were  the 
last  theme  into  which  Mrs.  Davilow  could  choose 
to  enter  fully  with  this  daughter. 

"  I  wonder  what  mamma  and  my  uncle  would 
say  if  they  knew  about  Mrs.  Glasher !"  thought 
Gwendolen,  in  her  inward  debating ;  not  that  she 
could  imagine  herself  telling  them,  even  if  she  had 
not  felt  bound  to  silence.  "  I  wonder  what  any 
body  would  say ;  or  what  they  would  say  to  Mr. 
Grandcourt's  marrying  some  one  else  and  having 
other  children !"  To  consider  what  "  any  body" 
would  say  was  to  be  released  from  the  difficulty 
of  judging  where  every  thing  was  obscure  to  her 
when  feeling  had  ceased  to  be  decisive.  She  had 
only  to  collect  her  memories,  which  proved  to  her 
that  "any  body"  regarded  illegitimate  children 
as  more  rightfully  to  be  looked  shy  on  and  de- 
prived of  social  advantages  than  illegitimate  fa- 
thers. The  verdict  of  "  any  body"  seemed  to  be 
that  she  had  no  reason  to  concern  herself  greatly 
on  behalf  of  Mrs.  Glasher  and  her  children. 

But  there  was  another  way  in  which  they  had 
caused  her  concern.  What  others  might  think 
could  not  do  away  with  a  feeling  which  in  the 
first  instance  would  hardly  be  too  strongly  de- 
scribed as  indignation  and  loathing  that  she 
should  have  been  expected  to  unite  herself  with 
an  outworn  life,  full  of  backward  secrets  which 
must  have  been  more  keenly  felt  than  any  asso- 
ciations with  her.  True,  the  question  of  love  on 
her  own  part  had  occupied  her  scarcely  at  all  in 
relation  to  Grandcourt.  The  desirability  of  mar- 
riage for  her  had  always  seemed  due  to  other 
feelings  than  love ;  and  to  be  enamored  was-  the 
part  of  the  man,  on  whom  the  advances  depend- 
ed. Gwendolen  had  found  no  objection  to  Grand- 
court's  way  of  being  enamored  before  she  had 
had  that  glimpse  of  his  past,  which  she  resented 
as  if  it  had  been  a  deliberate  offense  against  her. 
His  advances  to  her  were  deliberate,  and  she  felt 
a  retrospective  disgust  for  them.  Perhaps  other 
men's  lives  were  of  the  same  kind — full  of  secrets 
which  made  the  ignorant  suppositions  of  the  wom- 
an they  wanted  to  marry  a  farce  at  which  they 
were  laughing  in  their  sleeves. 

These  feelings  of  disgust  and  indignation  had 


102 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


sunk  deep ;  and  though  other  troublous  experi- 
ence in  the  last  weeks  had  dulled  them  from 
passion  into  remembrance,  it  was  chiefly  their 
reverberating  activity  which  kept  her  firm  to  the 
understanding  with  herself  that  she  was  not  go- 
ing to  accept  Grandcourt.  She  had  never  meant 
to  form  a  new  determination ;  she  had  only  been 
considering  what  might  be  thought  or  said.  If 
any  thing  could  have  induced  her  to  change,  it 
would  have  been  the  prospect  of  making  all 
things  easy  for  "  poor  mamma :"  that,  she  admit- 
ted, was  a  temptation.  But  no !  she  was  going 
to  refuse  him.  Meanwhile,  the  thought  that  he 
was  coming  to  be  refused  was  inspiriting:  she 
had  the  white  reins  in  her  hands  again ;  there 
was  a  new  current  in  her  frame,  reviving  her 
from  the  beaten-down  consciousness  in  which 
she  had  been  left  by  the  interview  with  Kles- 
mer.  She  was  not  now  going  to  crave  an  opin- 
ion of  her  capabilities ;  she  was  going  to  exer- 
cise her  power. 

Was  this  what  made  her  heart  palpitate  annoy- 
ingly  when  she  heard  the  horses'  footsteps  on  the 
gravel  ? — when  Miss  Merry,  who  opened  the  door 
to  Grandcourt,  came  to  tell  her  that  he  was  hi  the 
drawing-room  ?  The  hours  of  preparation  and  the 
triumph  of  the  situation  were  apparently  of  no  use : 
she  might  as  well  have  seen  Grandcourt  coming 
%  suddenly  on  her  in  the  midst  of  her  despondency. 

While  walking  into  the  drawing-room  she  had  to 
concentrate  all  her  energy  in  that  self-control 
which  made  her  appear  gravely  gracious  as  she 
gave  her  hand  to  him,  and  answered  his  hope 
that  she  was  quite  well  in  a  voice  as  low  and 
languid  as  his  own.  A  moment  afterward,  when 
they  were  both  of  them  seated  on  two  of  the 
wreath-painted  chairs — Gwendolen  upright  with 
downcast  eyelids,  Grandcourt  about  two  yards 
distant,  leaning  one  arm  over  the  back  of  his 
chair  and  looking  at  her,  while  he  held  his  hat 
in  his  left  hand — any  one  seeing  them  as  a  pic- 
ture would  have  concluded  that  they  were  in  some 
stage  of  love-making  suspense.  And  certainly 
the  love-making  had  begun :  she  already  felt  her- 
self being  wooed  by  this  silent  man  seated  at  an 
agreeable  distance,  with  the  subtlest  atmosphere 
of  attar  of  roses  and  an  attention  bent  wholly  on 
her.  And  he  also  considered  himself  to  be  woo- 
ing :  he  was  not  a  man  to  suppose  that  his  pres- 
ence carried  no  consequences ;  and  he  was  exact- 
ly the  man  to  feel  the  utmost  piquancy  in  a  girl 
whom  he  had  not  found  quite  calculable. 

"I  was  disappointed  not  to  find  you  at  Leu- 
bronn,"  he  began,  his  usual  broken  drawl  having 
just  a  shade  of  amorous  languor  in  it.  "The 
place  was  intolerable  without  you.  A  mere  ken- 
nel of  a  place.  Don't  you  think  so  ?" 

"  I  can't  judge  what  it  would  be  without  my- 
self," said  Gwendolen,  turning  her  eyes  on  him, 
with  some  recovered  sense  of  mischief.  "  With 
myself  I  liked  it  well  enough  to  have  staid  longer, 
if  I  could.  But  I  was  obliged  to  come  home  on 
account  of  family  troubles." 

"It  was  very  cruel  of  you  to  go  to  Leubronn," 
said  Grandcourt,  taking  no  notice  of  the  troubles, 
on  which  Gwendolen— she  hardly  knew  why- 
wished  that  there  should  be  a  clear  understanding 
at  once.  "  You  must  have  known  that  it  would 
spoil  every  thing :  you  knew  you  were  the  heart 
and  soul  of  every  thing  that  went  on.  Are  you 
quite  reckless  about  me  ?" 

It  was  impossible  to  say  "yes"  in  a  tone  that 


would  be  taken  seriously ;  equally  impossible  to 
say  "  no ;"  but  what  else  could  she  say  ?  In  her 
difficulty,  she  turned  down  her  eyelids  again  and 
blushed  over  face  and  neck.  Grandcourt  saw  her 
in  a  new  phase,  and  believed  that  she  was  show- 
ing her  inclination.  But  he  was  determined  that 
she  should  show  it  more  decidedly. 

"  Perhaps  there  is  some  deeper  interest  ?  Some 
attraction — some  engagement — which  it  would 
have  been  only  fair  to  make  me  aware  of  ?  Is 
there  any  man  who  stands  between  us  ?" 

Inwardly  the  answer  framed  itself,  "  No ;  but 
there  is  a  woman."  Yet  how  could  she  utter 
this  ?  Even  if  she  had  not  promised  that  woman 
to  be  silent,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
her  to  enter  on  the  subject  with  Grandcourt. 
But  how  could  she  arrest  this  wooing  by  begin- 
ning to  make  a  formal  speech — "  I  perceive  your 
intention;  it  is  most  flattering,  etc.?"  A  fish 
honestly  invited  to  come  and  be  eaten  has  a  clear 
course  in  declining^;  but  how  if  it  finds  itself 
swimming  against  a  net  ?  And  apart  from  the 
net-work,  would  she  have  dared  at  once  to  say 
any  thing  decisive?  Gwendolen  had  not  time 
to  be  clear  on  that  point.  As  it  was,  she  felt 
compelled  to  silence,  and  after  a  pause,  Grand- 
court  said, 

"Am  I  to  understand  that  some  one  else  is 
preferred  ?" 

Gwendolen,  now  impatient  of  her  own  embar- 
rassment, determined  to  rush  at  the  difficulty 
and  free  herself.  She  raised  her  eyes  again  and 
said,  with  something  of  her  former  clearness  and 
defiance,  "No!" — wishing  him  to  understand, 
"  What  then  ?  I  may  not  be  ready  to  take  you." 
There  was  nothing  that  Grandcourt  could  not 
understand  which  he  perceived  likely  to  affect 
his  amour  propre. 

"The  last  thing  I  would  do  is  to  importune 
you.  I  should  not  hope  to  win  you  by  making 
myself  a  bore.  If  there  were  no  hope  for  me,  I 
would  ask  you  to  tell  me  so  at  once,  that  I  might 
just  ride  away  to — no  matter  where." 

Almost  to  her  own  astonishment,  Gwendolen 
felt  a  sudden  alarm  at  the  image  of  Grandcourt 
finally  riding  away.  What  would  be  left  her 
then  ?  Nothing  but  the  former  dreariness.  She 
liked  him  to  be  there.  She  snatched  at  the  sub- 
ject that  would  defer  any  decisive  answer. 

"  I  fear  you  are  not  aware  of  what  has  hap- 
pened to  us.  I  have  lately  had  to  think  so  much 
of  my  mamma's  troubles  that  other  subjects  have 
been  quite  thrown  into  the  background.  She  has 
lost  all  her  fortune,  and  we  are  going  to  leave 
this  place.  I  must  ask  you  to  excuse  my  seem- 
ing preoccupied." 

In  eluding  a  direct  appeal  Gwendolen  recovered 
some  of  her  self-possession.  She  spoke  with  digni- 
ty, and  looked  straight  at  Grandcourt,  whose  long, 
narrow,  impenetrable  eyes  met  hers,  and  mysteri- 
ously arrested  them :  mysteriously ;  for  the  sub- 
tly varied  drama  between  man  and  woman  is  oft- 
en such  as  can  hardly  be  rendered  in  words  put 
together  like  dominoes,  according  to  obvious  fixed 
marks.  The  word  of  all  work,  Love,  will  no  more 
express  the  myriad  modes  of  mutual  attraction 
than  the  word  Thought  can  inform  you  what  is 
passing  through  your  neighbor's  mind.  It  would 
be  hard  to  tell  on  which  side — Gwendolen's  or 
Grandcourt's — the  influence  was  more  mixed.  At 
that  moment  his  strongest  wish  was  to  be  com- 
pletely master  of  this  creature — this  piquant  com- 


BOOK  HI.— MAIDENS  CHOOSING. 


108 


bination  of  maidenliness  and  mischief:  that  she 
knew  things  which  had  made  her  start  away  from 
him,  spurred  him  to  triumph  over  that  repug- 
nance;  and  he  was  believing  that  he  should  tri- 
umph. And  she — ah,  piteous  equality  in  the 
need  to  dominate! — she  was  overcome" like  the 
thirsty  one  who  is  drawn  toward  the  seeming 
water  in  the  desert,  overcome  by  the  suffused 
sense  that  here  in  this  man's  homage  to  her  lay 
the  rescue  from  helpless  subjection  to  an  op- 
pressive lot. 

All  the  while  they  were  looking  at  each  other ; 
and  Grandcourt  said,  slowly  and  languidly,  as  if 
it  were  of  no  importance,  other  things  having 
been  settled, 

"  You  will  tell  me  now,  I  hope,  that  Mrs.  Davi- 
low's  loss  of  fortune  will  not  trouble  you  further. 
You  will  trust  to  me  to  prevent  it  from  weighing 
upon  her.  You  will  give  me  the  claim  to  provide 
against  that." 

The  little  pauses  and  refined  drawlings  with 
which  this  speech  was  uttered  gave  time  for 
Gwendolen  to  go  through  the  dream  of  a  life. 
As  the  words  penetrated  her,  they  had  the  effect 
of  a  draught  of  wine,  which  suddenly  makes  all 
things  easier,  desirable  things  not  so  wrong,  and 
people  in  general  less  disagreeable.  She  had  a 
momentary  phantasmal  love  for  this  man  who 
chose  his  words  so  well,  and  who  was  a  mere  in- 
carnation of  delicate  homage.  Repugnance,  dread, 
scruples — these  were  dim  as.  remembered  pains, 
while  she  was  already  tasting  relief  under  the 
immediate  pain  of  hopelessness.  She  imagined 
herself  already  springing  to  her  mother,  and  being 
playful  again.  Yet  when  Grandcourt  had  ceased 
to  speak,  there  was  an  instant  in  which  she  was 
conscious  of  being  at  the  turning  of  the  ways. 

"  You  are  very  generous,"  she  said,  not  moving 
her  eyes,  and  speaking  with  a  gentle  intonation. 

"You  accept  what  will  make  such  things  a 
matter  of  course  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  without  any 
new  eagerness.  "  You  consent  to  become  my 
wife  ?" 

This  time  Gwendolen  remained  quite  pale. 
Something  made  her  rise  from  her  seat  in  spite 
of  herself,  and  walk  to  a  little  distance.  Then 
she  turned,  and  with  her  hands  folded  before  her 
stood  in  silence. 

Grandcourt  immediately  rose  too,  resting  his 
hat  on  the  chair,  but  still  keeping  hold  of  it. 
The  evident  hesitation  of  this  destitute  girl  to 
take  his  splendid  offer  stung  him  into  a  keen- 
ness of  interest  such  as  he  had  not  known  for 
years.  None  the  less  because  he  attributed  her 
hesitation  entirely  to  her  knowledge  about  Mrs. 
Glasher.  In  that  attitude  of  preparation,  he 
said, 

"Do  you  command  me  to  go?"  No  familiar 
spirit  could  have  suggested  to  him  more  effective 
words. 

"  No,"  said  Gwendolen.  She  could  not  let  him 
go :  that  negative  was  a  clutch.  She  seemed  to 
herself  to  be,  after  all,  only  drifted  toward  the 
tremendous  decision — but  drifting  depends  on 
something  besides  the  currents,  when  the  sails 
have  been  set  beforehand. 

"  You  accept  my  devotion  ?"  said  Grandcourt, 
holding  his  hat  by  his  side  and  looking  straight 
into  her  eyes,  without  other  movement.  Their 
eyes  meeting  in  that  way  seemed  to  allow  any 
length  of  pause ;  but  wait  as  long  as  she  would, 
how  could  she  contradict  herself?  What  had 


she  detained  him  for  ?  He  had  shut  out  any  ex- 
planation. 

"  Yes,"  came  as  gravely  from  Gwendolen's  lips 
as  if  she  had  been  answering  to  her  name  in  a 
court  of  justice.  He  received  it  gravely,  and  they 
still  looked  at  each  other  in  the  same  attitude". 
Was  there  ever  before  such  a  way  of  accepting 
the  bliss-giving  "  Yes  ?"  Grandcourt  liked  bet- 
ter to  be  at  that  distance  from  her,  and  to  feel 
under  a  ceremony  imposed  by  an  indefinable  pro- 
hibition that  breathed  from  Gwendolen's  bear- 
ing. 

But  he  did  at  length  lay  down  his  hat  and  ad- 
vance to  take  her  hand,  just  pressing  his  lips 
upon  it  and  letting  it  go  again.  She  thought  his 
behavior  perfect,  and  gained  a  sense  of  freedom 
which  made  her  almost  ready  to  be  mischievous. 
Her  "  Yes"  entailed  so  little  at  this  moment  that 
there  was  nothing  to  screen  the  reversal  of  her 
gloomy  prospects :  her  vision  was  filled  by  her 
own  release  from  the  Momperts,  and  her  moth- 
er's release  from  Sawyer's  Cottage.  With  a  hap- 
py curl  of  the  lips,  she  said, 

"  Will  you  not  see  mamma  ?   I  will  fetch  her." 

"  Let  us  wait  a  little,"  said  Grandcourt,  in  his 
favorite  attitude,  having  his  left  forefinger  and 
thumb  in  his  waistcoat  pocket,  and  with  his  right 
caressing  his  whisker,  while  he  stood  near  Gwen- 
dolen and  looked  at  her — not  unlike  a  gentleman 
who  has  a  felicitous  introduction  at  an  evening 
party, 

" Have  you  any  thing  else  to  say  to  me?"  said 
Gwendolen,  playfully. 

"  Yes.  I  know  having  things  said  to  you  is  a 
great  bore,"  said  Grandcourt,  rather  sympathet- 
ically. 

"  Not  when  they  are  things  I  like  to  hear." 

"  Will  it  bother  you  to  be  asked  how  soon  we 
can  be  married  ?" 

"I  think  it  will,  to-day,"  said  Gwendolen,  put- 
ting  up  her  chin  saucily. 

"  Not  to-day,  then.  But  to-morrow.  Think  of 
it  before  I  come  to-morrow.  In  a  fortnight— or 
three  weeks — as  soon  as  possible." 

"Ah,  you  think  you  will  be  tired  of  my  com- 
pany," said  Gwendolen.  "  I  notice  when  people 
are  married,  the  husband  is  not  so  much  with  his 
wife  as  when  they  were  engaged.  But  perhaps  I 
shall  like  that  better  too." 

She  laughed  charmingly. 

"You  shall  have  whatever  you  like,"  said 
Grandcourt. 

"  And  nothing  that  I  don't  like  ? — please  say 
that ;  because  I  think  I  dislike  what  I  don't  like 
more  than  I  like  what  I  like,"  said  Gwendolen, 
finding  herself  in  the  woman's  paradise  where  all 
her  nonsense  is  adorable. 

Grandcourt  paused :  these  were  subtilties  in 
which  he  had  much  experience  of  his  own.  "  I 
don't  know — this  is  such  a  brute  of  a  world, 
things  are  always  turning  up  that  one  doesn't 
like.  I  can't  always  hinder  your  being  bored. 
If  you  like  to  hunt  Criterion,  I  can't  hinder  his 
coming  down  by  some  chance  or  other." 

"  Ah,  my  friend  Criterion,  how  is  he  ?" 

"  He  is  outside :  I  made  the  groom  ride  him, 
that  you  might  see  him.  He  had  the  side-saddle 
on  for  an  hour  or  two  yesterday.  Come  to  the 
window  and  look  at  him." 

They  could  see  the  two  horses  being  taken 
slowly  round  the  sweep,  and  the  beautiful  creat- 
ures, in  their  fine  grooming,  sent  a  thrill  of  exul- 


104 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


tation  through  Gwendolen.  They  were  the  symbols 
of  command  and  luxury,  delightfully  contrasting 
with  the  ugliness  of  poverty  and  humiliation  at 
which  she  had  lately  been  looking  close. 

"  Will  you  ride  Criterion  to-morrow  ?"  said 
Grandcourt.  "If  you  will,  every  thing  shall  be 
arranged." 

"  I  should  like  it  of  all  things,"  said  Gwendolen. 
"  I  want  to  lose  myself  in  a  gallop  again.  But 
now  I  must  go  and  fetch  mamma." 

"  Take  my  arm  to  the  door,  then,"  said  Grand- 
court,  and  she  accepted.  Their  faces  were  very 
near  each  other,  being  almost  on  a  level,  and  he 
was  looking  at  her.  She  thought  his  manners  as 
a  lover  more  agreeable  than  any  she  had  seen 
described.  She  had  no  alarm  lest  he  meant  to 
kiss  her,  and  was  so  much  at  her  ease  that  she 
suddenly  paused  in  the  middle  of  the  room  and 
said,  half  archly,  half  earnestly, 

"Oh,  while  £  think  of  it— there  is  something  I 
dislike  that  you  can  save  me  from.  I  do  not  like 
Mr.  Lush's  company." 

"  You  shall  not  have  it.    I'll  get  rid  of  him." 

"  You  are  not  fond  of  him  yourself  ?" 

"  Not  in  the  least.  I  let  him  hang  on  me  be- 
cause he  has  always  been  a  poor  devil,"  said 


Grandcourt,  in  an  adagio  of  utter  indifference. 
"  They  got  him  to  travel  with  me  when  I  was  a 
lad.  He  was  always  that  coarse-haired  kind  of 
brute — a  sort  of  cross  between  a  hog  and  a  dilet- 
tante" 

Gwendolen  laughed.  All  that  seemed  kind 
and  natural  enough :  Grandcourt's  fastidiousness 
enhanced  the  kindness.  And  when  they  reached 
the  door,  his  way  of  opening  it  for  her  was  the 
perfection  of  easy  homage.  Really,  she  thought, 
he  was  likely  to  be  the  least  disagreeable  of  hus- 
bands. 

Mrs.  Davilow  was  waiting  anxiously,  in  her  bed- 
room when  Gwendolen  entered,  stepped  toward 
her  quickly,  and  kissing  her  on  both  cheeks,  said, 
in  a  low  tone,  "  Come  down,  mamma,  and  see  Mr. 
Grandcourt.  I  am  engaged  to  him." 

"  My  darling  child  !"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  with  a 
surprise  that  was  rather  solemn  than  glad. 

"  Yes,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  the  same  tone,  and 
with  a  quickness  which  implied  that  it  was  need- 
less to  ask  questions.  "Every  thing  is  settled. 
You  are  not  going  to  Sawyer's  Cottage,  I  am  not 
going  to  be  inspected  by  Mrs.  Mompert,  and  ev- 
ery thing  is  to  be  as  I  like.  So  come  down  with 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


CHAPTER  XXVin. 

"D  eat  plus  ais6  de  connaitre  I'homme  en  g<5n6ral 
one  de  connaitre  nn  nomine  en  particulier." — LA 
ROCHEFOUCAULD. 

An  hour  after  Grandcourt  had  left,  the  impor- 
tant news  of  Gwendolen's  engagement  was  known 
at  the  Rectory,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gascoigne,  with 
Anna,  spent  the  evening  at  Off endene. 

"  My  dear,  let  me  congratulate  you  on  having 
created  a  strong  attachment,"  said  the  Rector. 
"  You  look  serious,  and  I  don't  wonder  at  it :  a 
life-long  union  is  a  solemn  thing.  But  from  the 
way  Mr.  Grandcourt  has  acted  and  spoken,  I  think 
we  may  already  see  some  good  arising  out  of  our 
adversity.  It  has  given  you  an  opportunity  of  ob- 
serving your  future  husband's  delicate  liberality." 

Mr.  Gascoigne  referred  to  Grandcourt's  mode 
of  implying  that  he  would  provide  for  Mrs.  Dav- 
ilow— a  part  of  the  love-making  which  Gwendo- 
len had  remembered  to  cite  to  her  mother  with 
perfect  accuracy. 

"But  I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Grandcourt 
would  have  behaved  quite  as  handsomely  if  you 
had  not  gone  away  to  Germany,  Gwendolen,  and 
had  been  engaged  to  him,  as  you  no  doubt  might 
have  been,  more  than  a  month  ago,"  said  Mrs. 
Gascoigne,  feeling  that  she  had  to  discharge  a 
duty  on  this  occasion,  "But  now  there  is  no 
longer  room  for  caprice ;  indeed,  I  trust  you  have 
no  inclination  to  any.  A  woman  has  a  great 
debt  of  gratitude  to  a  man  who  perseveres  in 
making  her  such  an  offer.  But  no  doubt  you 
feel  properly." 

"  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  I  do,  aunt,"  said 
Gwendolen,  with  saucy  gravity.  "  I  don't  know 
every  thing  it  is  proper  to  feel  on  being  engaged." 

The  Rector  patted  her  shoulder  and  smiled  as 
at  a  bit  of  innocent  naughtiness,  and  his  wife  took 
his  behavior  as  an  indication  that  she  was  not  to 
be  displeased.  As  for  Anna,  she  kissed  Gwendolen, 


nd  said,  "I  do  hope  you  will  be  happy,"  but  then 
sank  into  the  background  and  tried  to  keep  the 
tears  back  too.  In  the  late  days  she  had  been 
imagining  a  little  romance  about  Rex — how  if  he 
still  longed  for  Gwendolen,  her  heart  might  be 
softened  by  trouble  into  love,  so  that  they  could 
by-and-by  be  married.  And  the  romance  had 
turned  to  a  prayer  that  she,  Anna,  might  be  able 
to  rejoice  like  a  good  sister,  and  only  think  of  be- 
ing useful  in  working  for  Gwendolen,  as  long  as 
Rex  was  not  rich.  But  now  she  wanted  grace  to 
rejoice  in  something  else.  Miss  Merry  and  the 
four  girls,  Alice  with  the  high  shoulders,  Bertha 
and  Fanny  the  whisperers,  and  Isabel  the  listen- 
er, were  all  present  on  this  family  occasion,  when 
every  thing  seemed  appropriately  turning  to  the 
honor  and  glory  of  Gwendolen,  and  real  life  was 
as  interesting  as  "  Sir  Charles  Grandison."  The 
evening  passed  chiefly  in  decisive  remarks  from 
the  Rector,  in  answer  to  conjectures  from  the  two 
elder  ladies.  According  to  him,  the  case  was  not 
one  in  which  he  could  think  it  his  duty  to  men- 
tion settlements :  every  thing  must,  and  doubtless 
would  safely,  be  left  to  Mr.  Grandcourt. 

"  I  should  like  to  know  exactly  what  sort  of 
places  Ryelands  and  Gadsmere  are,"  said  Mrs. 
Davilow. 

"Gadsmere,  I  believe,  is  a  secondary  place," 
said  Mr.  Gascoigne ;  "  but  Ryelands  I  know  to  be 
one  of  our  finest  seats.  The  park  is  extensive,  and 
the  woods  of  a  very  valuable  order.  The  house 
was  built  by  Inigo  Jones,  and  the  ceilings  are 
painted  in  the  Italian  style.  The  estate  is  said 
to  be  worth  twelve  thousand  a  year,  and  there 
are  two  livings,  one  a  rectory,  in  the  gift  of  the 
Grandcourts.  There  may  be  some  burdens  on  the 
land.  Still,  Mr.  Grandcourt  was  an  only  child." 

"  It  would  be  most  remarkable,"  said  Mrs.  Gas- 
coigne, "  if  he  were  to  become  Lord  Stannery  in 
addition  to  every  thing  else.  Only  think :  there 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


105 


is  the  Grandcourt  estate,  the  Mallinger  estate,  and 
the  baronetcy,  and  the  peerage" — she  was  mark- 
ing off  the  items  on  her  fingers,  and  paused  on 
the  fourth  while  she  added,  "  but  they  say  there 
will  be  no  land  coming  to  him  with  the  peerage." 
It  seemed  a  pity  there  was  nothing  for  the  fifth 
finger. 

"The  peerage,"  said  the  Rector,  judiciously, 
"  must  be  regarded  as  a  remote  chance.  There 
are  two  cousins  between  the  present  peer  and  Mr. 
Grandcourt.  It  is  certainly  a  serious  reflection 
how  death  and  other  causes  do  sometimes  concen- 
trate inheritances  on  one  man.  But  an  excess  of 
that  kind  is  to  be  deprecated.  To  be  Sir  Mallin- 
ger Grandcourt  Mallinger — I  suppose  that  will  be 
his  style — with  the  corresponding  properties,  is  a 
valuable  talent  enough  for  any  man  to  have  com- 
mitted to  him.  Let  us  hope  it  will  be  well  used." 

"  And  what  a  position  for  the  wife,  Gwendo- 
len !"  said  Mrs.  Gascoigne ;  "  a  great  responsi- 
bility indeed.  But  you  must  lose  no  tune  in 
writing  to  Mrs.  Mompert,  Henry.  It  is  a  good 
thing  that  you  have  an  engagement  of  marriage 
to  offer  as  an  excuse,  else  she  might  feel  offend- 
ed. She  is  rather  a  high  woman." 

"  I  am  rid  of  that  horror,"  thought  Gwendolen, 
to  whom  the  name  of  Mompert  had  become  a  sort 
of  Mumbo-jumbo.  She  was  very  silent  through 
the  evening,  and  that  night  could  hardly  sleep  at 
all  in  her  little  white  bed.  It  was  a  rarity  in  her 
strong  youth  to  be  wakeful ;  and  perhaps  a  still 
greater  rarity  for  her  to  be  careful  that  her  moth- 
er should  not  know  of  her  restlessness.  But  her 
state  of  mind  was  altogether  new :  she,  who  had 
been  used  to  feel  sure  of  herself  and  ready  to 
manage  others,  had  just  taken  a  decisive  step 
which  she  had  beforehand  thought  that  she  would 
not  take — nay,  perhaps,  was  bound  not  to  take. 
She  could  not  go  backward  now ;  she  liked  a  great 
deal  of  what  lay  before  her ;  and  there  was  nothing 
for  her  to  like  if  she  went  back.  But  her  resolu- 
tion was  dogged  by  the  shadow  of  that  previous 
resolve  which  had  at  first  come  as  the  undoubting 
movement  of  her  whole  being.  While  she  lay  on 
her  pillow  with  wide-open  eyes,  "  looking  on  dark- 
ness which  the  blind  do  see,"  she  was  appalled  by 
the  idea  that  she  was  going  to  do  what  she  had 
once  started  away  from  with  repugnance.  It  was 
new  to  her  that  a  question  of  right  or  wrong  in 
her  conduct  should  rouse  her  terror ;  she  had 
known  no  compunction  that  atoning  caresses  and 
presents  could  not  lay  to  rest.  But  here  had 
come  a  moment  when  something  like  a  new  con- 
sciousness was  awaked.  She  seemed  on  the  edge 
of  adopting  deliberately,  as  a  notion  for  all  the 
rest  of  her  life,  what  she  had  rashly  said  in  her 
bitterness,  when  her  discovery  had  driven  her 
away  to  Leubronn — that  it  did  not  signify  what 
she  did ;  she  had  only  to  amuse  herself  as  best 
she  could.  That  lawlessness,  that  casting  away  of 
all  care  for  justification,  suddenly  frightened  her : 
it  came  to  her  with  the  shadowy  array  of  possible 
calamity  behind  it— calamity  which  had  ceased  to 
be  a  mere  name  for  her ;  and  all  the  infiltrated  in- 
fluences of  disregarded  religious  teaching,  as  well 
as  the  deeper  impressions  of  something  awful  and 
inexorable  enveloping  her,  seemed  to  concentrate 
themselves  in  the  vague  conception  of  avenging 
power.  The  brilliant  position  she  had  longed  for, 
the  imagined  freedom  she  would  create  for  herself 
in  marriage,  the  deliverance  from  the  dull  insignifi- 
cance of  her  girlhood — all  were  immediately  before 


her;  and  yet  they  had  come  to  her  hunger  like 
food  with  the  taint  of  sacrilege  upon  it,  which 
she  must  snatch  with  terror.  In  the  darkness 
and  loneliness  of  her  little  bed,  her  more  resist- 
ant self  could  not  act  againsMhe  first  onslaught 
of  dread  after  her  irrevocable  decision.  That 
unhappy-faced  woman  and  her  children — Grand- 
court  and  his  relations  with  her — kept  repeating 
themselves  in  her  imagination  like  the  clinging 
memory  of  a  disgrace,  and  gradually  obliterated 
all  other  thought,  leaving  only  the  consciousness 
that  she  had  taken  those  scenes  into  her  life. 
Her  long  wakefulness  seemed  a  delirium ;  a  faint, 
faint  light  penetrated  beside  the  window-curtain ; 
the  dullness  increased.  She  could  bear  it  no 
longer,  and  cried,  "  Mamma  1" 

"  Yes,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  immediately, 
in  a  wakeful  voice. 

"  Let  me  come  to  you." 

She  soon  went  to  sleep  on  her  mother's  shoul- 
der, and  slept  on  till  late,  when,  dreaming  of  a  lit- 
up  ball-room,  she  opened  her  eyes  on  her  mother 
who  was  standing  by  the  bedside  with  a  small 
packet  in  her  hand. 

"  I  am  sorry  to  wake  you,  darling,  but  I  thought 
it  better  to  give  you  this  at  once.  The  groom  has 
brought  Criterion ;  he  has  come  on  another  horse, 
and  says  he  is  to  stay  here." 

Gwendolen  sat  up  in  bed  and  opened  the  packet. 
It  was  a  delicate  little  enameled  casket,  and  in- 
side was  a  splendid  diamond  ring,  with  a  letter 
which  contained  a  folded  bit  •  of  colored  paper 
and  these  words : 

"  Pray  wear  this  ring  when  I  come  at  twelve,  in 
sign  of  our  betrothal.  I  inclose  a  check  drawn 
in  the  name  of  Mr.  Gascoigne,  for  immediate  ex- 
penses. Of  course  Mrs.  Davilow  will  remain  at 
Offendene,  at  least  for  some  time.  I  hope,  when 
I  come,  you  will  have  granted  me  an  early  day, 
when  you  may  begin  to  command  me  at  a  shorter 
distance.  Yours  devotedly, 

"  H.  M.  GRAXDCOCRT." 

The  check  was  for  five  hundred  pounds,  and 
Gwendolen  turned  it  toward  her  mother,  with  the 
letter. 

"  How  very  kind  and  delicate !"  said  Mrs.  Dav- 
ilow, with  much  feeling.  • "  But  I  really  should 
like  better  not  to  be  dependent  on  a  son-in-law. 
I  and  the  girls  could  get  along  very  well." 

"Mamma,  if  you  say  that  again,  I  will  not 
marry  him,"  said  Gwendolen,  angrily. 

"  My  dear  child,  I  trust  you  are  not  going  to 
marry  only  for  my  sake,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  dep- 
recatingly. 

Gwendolen  tossed  her  head  on  the  pillow  away 
from  her  mother,  and  let  the  ring  lie.  She  was 
irritated  at  this  attempt  to  take  away  a  motive. 
Perhaps  the  deeper  cause  of  her  irritation  was 
the  consciousness  that  she  was  not  going  to  marry 
solely  for  her  mamma's  sake — that  she  was  drawn 
toward  the  marriage  hi  ways  against  which  stron- 
ger reasons  than  her  mother's  renunciation  were 
yet  not  strong  enough  to  hinder  her.  She  had 
waked  up  to  the  signs  that  she  was  irrevocably 
engaged,  and  all  the  ugly  visions,  the  alarms,  the 
arguments,  of  the  night  must  be  met  by  daylight, 
in  which  probably  they  would  show  themselves 
weak. 

"What  I  long  for  is  your  happiness,  dear," 
continued  Mrs.  Davilow,  pleadingly.  "  I  will  not 


106 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


eay  any  thing  to  vex  you.  Will  you  not  put  on 
the  ring  ?" 

For  a  few  moments  Gwendolen  did  not  answer, 
but  her  thoughts  were  active.  At  last  she  raised 
herself  with  a  determination  to  do  as  she  would 
do  if  she  had  started  on  horseback,  and  go  on 
with  spirit,  whatever  ideas  might  be  running  in 
her  head. 

"  I  thought  the  lover  always  put  on  the  betrothal 
ring  himself,"  she  said,  laughingly,  slipping  the 
ring  on  her  finger,  and  looking  at  it  with  a  charm- 
ing movement  of  her  head.  "I  know  why  he 
has  sent  it,"  she  added,  nodding  at  her  mamma. 

"Why?" 

"  He  would  rather  make  me  put  it  on  than  ask' 
me  to  let  him  do  it.  Aha !  he  is  very  proud.  But 
so  am  I.  We  shall  match  each  other.  I  should 
hate  a  man  who  went  down  on  his  knees,  and  came 
fawning  on  me.  He  really  is  not  disgusting." 

"  That  is  very  moderate  praise,  Gwen." 

"No,  it  is  not,  for  a  man,"  said  Gwendolen, 
gayly.  "  But  now  I  must  get  up  and  dress.  Will 
you  come  and  do  my  hair,  mamma  dear,"  she 
went  on,  drawing  down  her  mamma's  face  to  ca- 
ress it  with  her  own  cheeks,  "and  not  be  so 
naughty  any  more  as  to  talk  of  living  in  poverty  ? 
You  must  bear  to  be  made  comfortable,  even  if 
you  don't  like  it.  And  Mr.  Grandcourt  behaves 
perfectly,  now  does  he  not  ?" 

"  Certainly  he  does,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  encour- 
aged, and  persuaded  that,  after  all,  Gwendolen 
was  fond  of  her  betrothed.  She  herself  thought 
him  a  man  whose  attentions  were  likely  to  tell 
on  a  girl's  feeling.  Suitors  must  often  be  judged 
as  words  are,  by  the  standing  and  the  figure  they 
make  in  polite  society:  it  is  difficult  to  know 
much  else  of  them.  And  all  the  mother's  anxie- 
ty turned,  not  on  Grandcourt's  character,  but  on 
Gwendolen's  mood  in  accepting  him. 

The  mood  was  necessarily  passing  through  a 
new  phase  this  morning.  Even  in  the  hour  of 
making  her  toilet  she  had  drawn  on  all  the 
knowledge  she  had  for  grounds  to  justify  her 
marriage.  And  what  she  most  dwelt  on  was  the 
determination  that  when  she  was  Grandcourt's 
wife  she  would  urge  him  to  the  most  liberal  con- 
duct toward  Mrs.  Glasher's  children. 

"  Of  what  use  would  it  be  to  her  that  I  should 
not  marry  him  ?  He  -could  have  married  her  if 
he  had  liked;  but  he  did  not  like.  Perhaps  she 
is  to  blame  for  that.  There  must  be  a  great  deal 
about  her  that  I  know  nothing  of.  And  he  must 
have  been  good  to  her  in  many  ways,  else  she 
would  not  have  wanted  to  marry  him." 

But  that  last  argument  at  once  began  to  appear 
doubtful.  Mrs.  Glasher  naturally  wished  to  ex- 
clude other  children  who  would  stand  between 
Grandcourt  and  her  own  ;  and  Gwendolen's  com- 
prehension of  this  feeling  prompted  another  way 
of  reconciling  claims. 

"  Perhaps  we  shall  have  no  children.  I  hope 
we  shall  not.  And  he  might  leave  the  estate  to 
the  pretty  little  boy.  My  uncle  said  that  Mr. 
Grandcourt  could  do  as  he  liked  with  the  estates. 
Only  when  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  dies  there  will  be 
enough  for  two." 

This  made  Mrs.  Glasher  appear  quite  unreason- 
able in  demanding  that  her  boy  should  be  sole 
heir ;  and  the  double  property  was  a  security  that 
Grandcourt's  marriage  would  do  her  no  wrong, 
when  the  wife  was  Gwendolen  Harleth  with  all 
her  proud  resolution  not  to  be  fairly  accused. 


This  maiden  had  been  accustomed  to  think  her- 
self blameless :  other  persons  only  were  faulty. 

It  was  striking,  that  in  the  hold  which  this 
argument  of  her  doing  no  wrong  to  Mrs.  Glasher 
had  taken  on  her  mind,  her  repugnance  to  the 
idea  of  Grandcourt's  past  had  sunk  into  a  subor- 
dinate feeling.  The  terror  she  had  felt  in  the 
night-watches  at  overstepping  the  border  of  wick- 
edness by  doing  what  she  had  at  first  felt  to  be 
wrong,  had  dulled  any  emotions  about  his  conduct. 
She  was  thinking  of  him,  whatever  he  might  be,  as 
a  man  over  whom  she  was  going  to  have  indefinite 
power ;  and  her  loving  him  having  never  been  a 
question  with  her,  any  agreeableness  he  had  was 
so  much  gain.  Poor  Gwendolen  had  no  awe  of 
unmanageable  forces  in  the  state  of  matrimony, 
but  regarded  it  as  altogether  a  matter  of  manage- 
ment, in  which  she  would  know  how  to  act.  In 
relation  to  Grandcourt's  pa.st  she  encouraged  new 
doubts  whether  he  were  likely  to  have  differed 
much  from  other  men ;  and  she  devised  little 
schemes  for  learning  what  was  expected  of  men 
in  general. 

But  whatever  else  might  be  true  in  the  world, 
her  hair  was  dressed  suitably  for  riding,  and  she 
went  down  in  her  riding-habit  to  avoid  delay  be- 
fore getting  on  horseback.  She  wanted  to  have 
her  blood  stirred  once  more  with  the  intoxication 
of  youth,  and  to  recover  the  daring  with  which 
she  had  been  used  to  think  of  her  course  in  life. 
Already  a  load  was  lifted  off  her ;  for  in  daylight 
and  activity  it  was  less  oppressive  to  have  doubts 
about  her  choice  than  to  feel  that  she  had  no 
choice  but  to  endure  insignificance  and  servitude. 

"  Go  back  and  make  yourself  look  like  a  duch- 
ess, mamma,"  she  said,  turning  suddenly  as  she 
was  going  down  stairs.  "Put  your  point -lace 
over  your  head.  I  must  have  you  look  like  a 
duchess.  You  must  not  take  things  humbly." 

When  Grandcourt  raised  her  left  hand  gently 
and  looked  at  the  ring,  she  said,  gravely,  "  It  was 
very  good  of  you  to  think  of  every  thing  and  send 
me  that  packet." 

"  You  will  tell  me  if  there  is  any  thing  I  for- 
get ?"  he  said,  keeping  the  hand  softly  within  his 
own.  "  I  will  do  any  thing  you  wish." 

"  But  I  am  very  unreasonable  in  my  wishes," 
said  Gwendolen,  smiling. 

"  Yes,  I  expect  that.     Women  always  are." 

"  Then  I  will  not  be  unreasonable,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, taking  away  her  hand,  and  tossing  her  head 
saucily.  "  I  will  not  be  told  that  I  am  what  wom- 
en always  are." 

"  I  did  not  say  that,"  said  Grandcourt,  looking 
at  her  with  his  usual  gravity.  "  You  are  what  no 
other  woman  is." 

"And  what  is  that,  pray?"  said  Gwendolen, 
moving  to  a  distance  with  a  little  air  of  menace. 

Grandcourt  made  his  pause  before  he  answer- 
ed. "  You  are  the  woman  I  love." 

"  Oh,  what  nice  speeches !"  said  Gwendolen, 
laughing.  The  sense  of  that  love  which  he  must 
once  have  given  to  another  woman  under  strange 
circumstances  was  getting  familiar. 

"  Give  me  a  nice  speech  in  return.  Say  when 
we  are  to  be  married." 

"  Not  yet.  Not  till  we  have  had  a  gallop  over 
the  downs.  I  am  so  thirsty  for  that,  I  can  think 
of  nothing  else.  I  wish  the  hunting  had  begun. 
Sunday  the  twentieth,  twenty -seventh,  Monday, 
Tuesday."  Gwendolen  was  counting  on  her  fin- 
gers with  the  prettiest  nod  while  she  looked  at 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


107 


Grandcourt,  and  at  last  swept  one  palm  over  the 
other  while  she  said,  triumphantly,  "It  will  begin 
in  ten  days !" 

"  Let  us  be  married  in  ten  days,  then,"  said 
Grandcourt,  "  and  we  shall  not  be  bored  about 
the  stables." 

"What  do  women  always  say  in  answer  to 
that  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  mischievously. 

"They  agree  to  it,"  said  the  lover,  rather  off 
his  guard. 

''  Then  I  will  not,"  said  Gwendolen,  taking  up 
her  gauntlets  and  putting  them  on,  while  she  kept 
her  eyes  on  him  with  gathering  fun  in  them. 

The  scene  was  pleasant  on  both  sides.  A  cruder 
lover  would  have  lost  the  view  of  her  pretty  ways 
and  attitudes,  and  spoiled  all  by  stupid  attempts 
at  caresses,  utterly  destructive  of  drama.  Grand- 
court  preferred  the  drama ;  and  Gwendolen,  left 
at  ease,  found  her  spirits  rising  continually  as  she 
played  at  reigning.*  Perhaps  if  Klesmer  had  seen 
more  of  her  in  this  unconscious  kind  of  acting, 
instead  of  when  she  was  trying  to  be  theatrical, 
he  might  have  rated  her  chance  higher. 

When  they  had  had  a  glorious  gallop,  however, 
she  was  in  a  state  of  exhilaration  that  disposed 
her  to  think  well  of  hastening  the  marriage  which 
would  make  her  life  all  of  a  piece  with  this  splen- 
did kind  of  enjoyment.  She  would  not  debate 
any  more  about  an  act  to  which  she  had  commit- 
ted herself;  and  she  consented  to  fix  the  wed- 
ding on  that  day  three  weeks,  notwithstanding 
the  difficulty  of  fulfilling  the  customary  laws  of 
the  trousseau. 

Lush,  of  course,  was  made  aware  of  the  engage- 
ment by  abundant  signs,  without  being  formally 
told,  But  he  expected  some  communication  as  a 
consequence  of  it,  and  after  a  few  days  he  became 
rather  impatient  under  Grandcourt's  silence,  feel- 
ing sure  that  the  change  would  affect  his  personal 
prospects,  and  wishing  to  know  exactly  how.  His 
tactics  no  longer  included  any  opposition — which 
he  did  not  love  for  its  own  sake.  He  might  easily 
cause  Grandcourt  a  great  deal  of  annoyance,  but 
it  would  be  to  his  own  injury,  and  to  create  annoy- 
ance was  not  a  motive  with  him.  Miss  Gwendolen 
he  would  certainly  not  have  been  sorry  to  frustrate 
a  little,  but — after  all  there  was  no  knowing  what 
would  come.  It  was  nothing  new  that  Grand- 
court  should  show  a  perverse  willfulness ;  yet  in 
his  freak  about  this  girl  he  struck  Lush  rather 
newly  as  something  like  a  man  who  was  fey — led 
on  by  an  ominous  fatality ;  and  that  one  born  to 
his  fortune  should  make  a  worse  business  of  his 
life  than  was  necessary,  seemed  really  pitiable. 
Having  protested  against  the  marriage,  Lush  had 
a  second-sight  for  its  evil  consequences.  Grand- 
court  had  been  taking  the  pains  to  write  letters 
and  give  orders  himself  instead  of  employing 
Lush ;  and  appeared  to  be  ignoring  his  useful- 
ness, even  choosing,  against  the  habit  of  years, 
to  breakfast  alone  in  his  dressing-room.  But  a 
tete-d-tete  was  not  to  be  avoided  in  a  house  empty 
of  guests ;  and  Lush  hastened  to  use  an  opportu- 
nity of  saying — it  was  one  day  after  dinner,  for 
there  were  difficulties  in  Grandcourt's  dining  at 
Offendene — 

"  And  when  is  the  marriage  to  take  place  ?" 

Grandcourt,  who  drank  little  wine,  had  left  the 
table  and  was  lounging,  while  he  smoked,  in  an 
easy-chair  near  the  hearth,  where  a  fire  of  oak 
boughs  was  gaping  to  its  glowing  depths,  and  edg- 
ing them  with  a  delicate  tint  of  ashes  delightful  to 


behold.  The  chair  of  red-brown  velvet  brocade 
was  a  becoming  background  for  his  pale-tinted 
well-cut  features  and  exquisite  long  hands :  omit- 
ting the  cigar,  you  might  have  imagined  him  a 
portrait  by  Moroni,  who  would  have  rendered 
wonderfully  the  impenetrable  gaze  and  air  of 
distinction ;  and  a  portrait  by  that  great  master 
would  have  been  quite  as  lively  a  companion  as 
Grandcourt  was  disposed  to  be.  But  he  answer- 
ed without  unusual  delay. 

"  On  the  tenth:" 

"  I  suppose  you  intend  to  remain  here." 

"  We  shall  go  to  Ryelands  for  a  little  while ;  but 
we  shall  return  here  for  the  sake  of  the  hunt- 
ing." 

After  this  word  there  was  the  languid  inartic- 
ulate sound  frequent  with  Grandcourt  when  he 
meant  to  continue  speaking,  and  Lush  waited  for 
something  more.  Nothing  came,  and  he  was 
going  to  put  another  question,  when  the  inarticu- 
late sound  began  again  and  introduced  the  mild- 
ly uttered  suggestion, 

"  You  had  better  make  some  new  arrangement 
for  yourself." 

"What!  I  am  to  cut  and  run?"  said  Lush, 
prepared  to  be  good-tempered  on  the  occasion. 

"  Something  of  that  kind." 

"The  bride  objects  to  me.  I  hope  she  will 
make  up  to  you  for  the  want  of  my  services." 

"  I  can't  help  your  being  so  damnably  disagree^ 
able  to  women,"  said  Grandcourt,  in  soothing 
apology. 

"  To  one  woman,  if  you  please." 

"  It  makes  no  difference,  since  she  is  the  one 
in  question." 

"  I  suppose  I  am  not  to  be  turned  adrift  after 
fifteen  years  without  some  provision." 

"  You  must  have  saved  something  out  of  me." 

"  Deuced  little.  I  have  often  saved  something 
for  you." 

"You  can  have  three  hundred  a  year.  But 
you  must  live  in  town  and  be  ready  to  look  after 
things  for  me  when  I  want  you.  I  shall  be  rather 
hard  up." 

"  If  you  are  not  going  to  be  at  Ryelands  this 
winter,  I  might  run  down  there  and  let  you  know 
how  Swinton  goes  on." 

"  If  you  like.  I  don't  care  a  toss  where  you 
are,  so  that  you  keep  out  of  sight." 

"  Much  obliged,"  said  Lush,  able  to  take  the 
affair  more  easily  than  he  had  expected.  He  was 
supported  by  the  secret  belief  that  he  should  by- 
and-by  be  wanted  as  much  as  ever. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  not  object  to  packing  up  as 
soon  as  possible,"  said  Grandcourt.  "  The  Tor- 
ringtons  are  coming,  and  Miss  .Harleth  will  be 
riding  over  here." 

"  With  all  my  heart.  Can't  I  be  of  use  in  go- 
ing to  Gadsmere  ?" 

"  No.     I  am  going  myself." 

"About  your  being  rather  hard  up.  Have  you 
thought  of  that  plan — " 

"  Just  leave  me  alone,  will  you  ?"  said  Grand- 
court,  in  his  lowest  audible  tone,  tossing  his  cigar 
into  the  fire,  and  rising  to  walk  away. 

He  spent  the  evening  in  the  solitude  of  the 
smaller  drawing-room,  where,  with  various  new 
publications  on  the  table,  of  the  kind  a  gentle- 
man may  like  to  have  at  hand  without  touching, 
he  employed  himself  (as  a  philosopher  might 
have  done)  in  sitting  meditatively  on  a  sofa  and 
abstaining  from  literature — political,  comic,  cyn- 


108 


DANIEL  DERONDA, 


ical,  or  romantic.  In  this  way  hours  may  pass 
surprisingly  soon,  without  the  arduous  invisible 
chase  of  philosophy ;  not  from  love  of  thought, 
but  from  hatred  of  effort — from  a  state  of  the  in- 
ward world,  something  like  premature  age,  where 
the  need  for  action  lapses  into  a  mere  image  of 
what  has  been,  is,  and  may  or  might  be ;  where 
impulse  is  born  and  dies  in  a  phantasmal  world, 
pausing  in  rejection  even  of  a  shadowy  fulfillment. 
That  is  a  condition  which  often  comes  with  whit- 
ening hair ;  and  sometimes,  too,  an  intense  obsti- 
nacy and  tenacity  of  rule,  like  the  main  trunk  of 
an  exorbitant  egoism,  conspicuous  in  proportion 
as  the  varied  susceptibilities  of  younger  years 
are  stripped  away. 

But  Grandcourt's  hair,  though  he  had  not  much 
of  it,  was  of  a  fine  sunny  blonde,  and  his  moods 
were  not  entirely  to  be  explained  as  ebbing  en- 
ergy. We  mortals  have  a  strange  spiritual  chem- 
istry going  on  within  us,  so  that  a  lazy  stagnation 
or  even  a  cottony  milkiness  may  be  preparing  one 
knows  not  what  biting  or  explosive  material.  The 
navvy  waking  from  sleep,  and  without  malice  heav- 
ing a  stone  to  crush  the  life  out  of  his  still  sleep- 
ing comrade,  is  understood  to  lack  the  trained 
motive  which  makes  a  character  fairly  calculable 
in  its  actions ;  but  by  a  roundabout  course  even 
a  gentleman  may  make  of  himself  a  chancy  per- 
sonage, raising  an  uncertainty  as  to  what  he  may 
do  next,  which  sadly  spoils  companionship. 

Grandcourt's  thoughts  this  evening  were  like 
the  circlets  one  sees  in  a  dark  pool  continually 
dying  out  and  continually  started  again  by  some 
impulse  from  below  the  surface.  The  deeper 
central  impulse  came  from  the  image  of  Gwendo- 
len ;  but  the  thoughts  it  stirred  would  be  imper- 
fectly illustrated  by  a  reference  to  the  amatory 
poets  of  all  ages.  It  was  characteristic  that  he 
got  none  of  his  satisfaction  from  the  belief  that 
Gwendolen  was  in  love  with  him,  and  that  love 
had  overcome  the  jealous  resentment  which  had 
made  her  run  away  from  him.  On  the  contrary, 
he  believed  that  this  girl  was  rather  exceptional 
in  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  his  assiduous  atten- 
tion to  her,  she  was  not  in  love  with  him ;  and  it 
seemed  to  him  very  likely  that  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  sudden  poverty  which  had  come  over  her 
family,  she  would  not  have  accepted  him.  From 
the  very  first  there  had  been  an  exasperating 
fascination  in  the  tricksiness  with  which  she  had 
— not  met  his  advances,  but — wheeled  away  from 
them.  She  had  been  brought  to  accept  him  in 
spite  of  every  thing — brought  to  kneel  down  like 
a  horse  under  training  for  the  arena,  though  she 
might  have  an  objection  to  it  all  the  while.  On 
the  whole,  Grandcourt  got  more  pleasure  out  of 
this  notion  than  he  could  have  done  out  of  win- 
ning a  girl  of  whom  he  was  sure  that  she  had  a 
strong  inclination  for  him  personally.  And  yet 
this  pleasure  in  mastering  reluctance  flourished 
along  with  the  habitual  persuasion  that  no  wom- 
an whom  he  favored  could  be  quite  indifferent  to 
his  personal  influence ;  and  it  seemed  to  him  not 
unlikely  that  by -and -by  Gwendolen  might  be 
more  enamored  of  him  than  he  of  her.  In  any 
case,  she  would  have  to  submit ;  and  he  enjoyed 
thinking  of  her  as  his  future  wife,  whose  pride 
and  spirit  were  suited  to  command  every  one  but 
himself.  He  had  no  taste  for  a  woman  who  was 
all  tenderness  to  him,  full  of  petitioning  solici- 
tude and  .willing  obedience.  He  meant  to  be 
master  of  a  woman  who  would  have  liked  to  mas- 


ter him,  and  who  perhaps  would  have  been  capa- 
ble of  mastering  another  man. 

Lush,  having  failed  in  his  attempted  reminder 
to  Grandcourt,  thought  it  well  to  communicate 
with  Sir  Hugo,  in  whom,  as  a  man  having  per- 
haps interest  enough  to  command  the  bestowal 
of  some  place  where  the  work  was  light,  gentle- 
manly, and  not  ill  paid,  he  was  anxious  to  culti- 
vate a  sense  of  friendly  obligation,  not  feeling  at 
all  secure  against  the  future  need  of  such  a  place. 
He  wrote  the  following  letter,  and  addressed  it 
to  Park  Lane,  whither  he  knew  the  family  had 
returned  from  Leubronn : 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  HUGO, — Since  we  came  home  the 
marriage  has  been  absolutely  decided  on,  and  is  to 
take  place  in  less  than  three  weeks.  It  is  so  far 
the  worse  for  him  that  her  mother  has  lately  lost 
all  her  fortune,  and  he  will  have  to  find  supplies. 
Grandcourt,  I  know,  is  feeling  the  want  of  cash ; 
and  unless  some  other  plan  is  resorted  to,  he  will 
be  raising  money  in  a  foolish  way.  I  am  going  to 
leave  Diplow  immediately,  and  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  start  the  topic.  What  I  should  advise  is  that 
Mr.  Deronda,  who  I  know  has  your  confidence, 
should  propose  to  come  and  pay  a  short  visit  here, 
according  to  invitation  (there  are  going  to  be  oth- 
er people  in  the  house),  and  that  you  should  put 
him  fully  in  possession  of  your  wishes  and  the 
possible  extent  of  your  offer.  Then,  that  he  should 
introduce  the  subject  to  Grandcourt  so  as  not  to 
imply  that  you  suspect  any  particular  want  of 
money  on  his  part,  but  only  that  there  is  a  strong 
wish  on  yours.  What  I  have  formerly  said  to 
him  has  been  in  the  way  of  a  conjecture  that  you 
might  be  willing  to  give  a  good  sum  for  his  chance 
of  Diplow ;  but  if  Mr.  Deronda  came  armed  wiih 
a  definite  offer,  that  would  take  another  sort  of 
hold.  Ten  to  one  he  will  not  close  for  some  time 
to  come ;  but  the  proposal  will  have  got  a  stronger 
lodgment  in  his  mind ;  and  though  at  present  he 
has  a  great  notion  of  the  hunting  here,  I  see  a 
likelihood,  under  the  circumstances,  that  he  will 
get  a  distaste  for  the  neighborhood,  and  there 
will  be  the  notion  of  the  money  sticking  by  him 
without  being  urged.  I  would  bet  on  your  ulti- 
mate success.  As  I  am  not  to  be  exiled  to  Sibe- 
ria, but  am  to  be  within  call,  it  is  possible  that, 
by-and-by,  I  may  be  of  more  service  to  you.  But 
at  present  I  can  think  of  no  medium  so  good  as 
Mr.  Deronda.  Nothing  puts  Grandcourt  in  worse 
humor  than  having  the  lawyers  thrust  their  paper 
under  his  nose  uninvited. 

"  Trusting  that  your  visit  to  Leubronn  has  put 
you  in  excellent  condition  for  the  winter,  I  remain, 
my  dear  Sir  Hugo,  yours  very  faithfully, 

"THOMAS  CRANMKR  LUSH." 

Sir  Hugo,  having  received  this  letter  at  break- 
fast, handed  it  to  Deronda,  who,  though  he  had 
chambers  in  town,  was  somehow  hardly  ever  in 
them,  Sir  Hugo  not  being  contented  without  him. 
The  chatty  Baronet  would  have  liked  a  young 
companion  even  if  there  had  been  no  peculiar 
reasons  for  attachment  between  them :  one  with 
a  fine  harmonious  unspoiled  face  fitted  to  keep 
up  a  cheerful  view  of  posterity  and  inheritance 
generally,  notwithstanding  particular  disappoint- 
ments; and  his  affection  for  Deronda  was  not 
diminished  by  the  deep-lying  though  not  obtrusive 
difference  in  their  notions  and  tastes.  Perhaps 
it  was  all  the  stronger ;  acting  as  the  same  sort 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


109 


of  difference  does  between  a  man  and  a  woman  in 
giving  a  piquancy  to  the  attachment  which  sub- 
sists in  spite  of  it.  Sir  Hugo  did  not  think  unap- 
provingly of  himself ;  but  he  looked  at  men  and 
society  from  a  liberal-menagerie  point  of  view, 
and  he  had  a  certain  pride  in  Deronda's  differing 
from  him,  which,  if  it  had  found  voice,  might 
have  said,  "  You  see  this  fine  young  fellow — not 
such  as  you  see  every  day,  is  he  ? — he  belongs  to 
me  in  a  sort  of  way ;  I  brought  him  up  from  a 
child ;  but  you  would  not  ticket  him  off  easily,  he 
has  notions  of  his  own,  and  he's  as  far  as  the 
poles  asunder  from  what  I  was  at  his  age."  This 
state  of  feeling  was  kept  up  by  the  mental  bal- 
ance in  Deronda,  who  was  moved  by  an  affection- 
ateness  such  as  we  are  apt  to  call  feminine,  dispos- 
ing him  to  yield  in  ordinary  details,  while  he  had 
a  certain  inflexibility  of  judgment,  an  independ- 
ence of  opinion,  held  to  be  rightfully  masculine. 

When  he  had  read  the  letter,  he  returned  it 
without  speaking,  inwardly  wincing  under  Lush's 
mode  of  attributing  a  neutral  usefulness  to  him  in 
the  family  affairs. 

"  What  do  you  say,  Dan  ?  It  would  be  pleas- 
ant enough  for  you.  You  have  not  seen  the  place 
for  a  good  many  years  now,  and  you  might  have  a 
famous  run  with  the  harriers  if  you  went  down 
next  week,"  said  Sir  Hugo. 

"  I  should  not  go  on  that  account,"  said  De- 
ronda, buttering  his  bread  attentively.  He  had 
an  objection  to  this  transparent  kind  of  persua- 
siveness, which  all  intelligent  animals  are  seen 
to  treat  with  indifference.  If  he  went  to  Diplow, 
he  should  be  doing  something  disagreeable  to 
oblige  Sir  Hugo. 

"  I  think  Lush's  notion  is  a  good  one.  And  it 
would  be  a  pity  to  lose  the  occasion." 

"  That  is  a  different  matter — if  you  think  my 
going  of  importance  to  your  object,"  said  Deron- 
da, still  with  that  aloofness  of  manner  which  im- 
plied some  suppression.  He  knew  that  the  Baron- 
et had  set  his  heart  on  the  affair. 

"  Why,  you  will  see  the  fair  gambler,  the  Leu- 
bronn  Diana,  I  shouldn't  wonder,"  said  Sir  Hugo, 
gayly.  "  We  shall  have  to  invite  her  to  the  Abbey, 
when  they  are  married,  Louisa,"  he  added,  turn- 
ing to  Lady  Mallinger,  as  if  she  too  had  read  the 
letter. 

"  I  can  not  conceive  whom  you  mean,"  said 
Lady  Mallinger,  who,  in  fact,  had  not  been  list- 
ening, her  mind  having  been  taken  up  with  her 
first  sips  of  coffee,  the  objectionable  cuff  of  her 
sleeve,  and  the  necessity  of  carrying  Theresa  to 
the  dentist — innocent  and  partly  laudable  pre- 
occupations, as  the  gentle  lady's  usually  were. 
Should  her  appearance  be  inquired  after,  let  it 
be  said  that  she  had  reddish  -  blonde  hair  (the 
hair  of  the  period),  a  small  Roman  nose,  rather 
prominent  blue  eyes  and  delicate  eyelids,  with  a 
figure  which  her  thinner  friends  called  fat,  her 
hands  showing  curves  and  dimples  like  a  magni- 
fied baby's. 

"I  mean  that  Grandcourt  is  going  to  marry 
the  girl  you  saw  at  Leubronn — don't  you  remem 
ber  her  '—the  Miss  Harleth  who  used  to  play  at 
roulette." 

"  Dear  me !     Is  that  a  good  match  for  him  ? 

"That  depends  on  the  sort  of  goodness  he 
wants,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  smiling.  "  However,  she 
and  her  friends  have  nothing,  and  she  will  bring 
him  expenses.  It's  a  good  match  for  my  pur- 
poses, because  if  I  am  willing  to  fork  out  a  sum 


of  money,  he  may  be  willing 
of  Diplow,  so  that  we  shall  have  it  out  and  out, 
and  when  I  die,  you  will  have  the  consolation  of 
going  to  the  place  you  would  like  to  go  to — wher- 
ever I  may  go." 

"I  wish  you  would  not  talk  of  dying  in  that 
ight  way,  dear." 

"  It's  rather  a  heavy  way,  Lou,  for  I  shall  have 
to  pay  a  heavy  sum — forty  thousand  at  least." 

But  why  are  we  to  invite  them  to  the  Ab- 
bey ?"  said  Lady  Mallinger.  "  I  do  not  like  wom- 
en who  gamble,  like  Lady  Cragstone." 

'  Oh,  you  will  not  mind  her  for  a  week.  Be- 
sides, she  is  not  like  Lady  Cragstone  because  she 
gambled  a  little,  any  more  than  I  am  like  a  bro- 
ker because  I'm  a  Whig.  I  want  to  keep  Grand- 
court  in  good  humor,  and  to  let  him  see  plenty 
of  this  place,  that  he  may  think  the  less  of  Dip- 
low.  I  don't  know  yet  whether  I  shall  get  bun 
to  meet  me  in  this  matter.  And  if  Dan  were  to 
go  over  on  a  visit  there,  he  might  hold  out  the 
bait  to  him.  It  would  be  doing  me  a  great  serv- 
ice." This  was  meant  for /Deronda. 

'  Daniel  is  not  fond  of  Mr.  Grandcourt,  I  think, 
is  he  ?"  said  Lady  Mallinger,  looking  at  Deronda 
inquiringly. 

"  There  is  no  avoiding  every  body  one  doesn't 
happen  to  be  fond  of,"  said  Deronda.  "  I  will  go 
to  Diplow — I  don't  know  that  I  have  any  thing 
better  to  do — since  Sir  Hugo  wishes  it." 

"  That's  a  trump !"  said  Sir  Hugo,  well  pleased. 
"And  if  you  don't  find  it  very  pleasant,  it's  so 
much  experience.  Nothing  used  to  come  amiss 
to  me  when  I  was  young.  You  must  see  men 
and  manners." 

"  Yes ;  but  I  have  seen  that  man,  and  some- 
thing of  his  manners  too,"  said  Deronda. 

"  Not  nice  manners,  I  think,"  said  Lady  Mal- 
linger. 

"  Well,  you  see  they  succeed  with  your  sex," 
said  Sir  Hugo,  provokingly.  "And  he  was  an 
uncommonly  good-looking  fellow  when  he  was 
two  or  three  and  twenty — like  his  father.  He 
doesn't  take  after  his  father  in  marrying  the  heir- 
ess, though.  If  he  had  got  Miss  Arrowpoint  and 
my  land  too,  confound  him,  he  would  have  had  a 
fine  principality." 

Deronda,  in  anticipating  the  projected  visit,  felt 
less  disinclination  than  when  consenting  to  it. 
The  drama  of  that  girl's  marriage  did  interest 
him:  what  he  had  heard  through  Lush  of  her 
having  run  away  from  the  suit  of  the  man  she 
was  now  going  to  take  as  a  husband,  had  thrown 
a  new  sort  of  light  on  her  gambling ;  and  it  was 
probably  the  transition  from  that  fevered  worldli- 
ness  into  poverty  which  had  urged  her  acceptance 
where  she  must  in  some  way  have  felt  repulsion. 
All  this  implied  a  nature  liable  to  difficulty  and 
struggle — elements  of  life  which  had  a  predomi- 
nant attraction  for  his  sympathy,  due  perhaps  to 
his  early  pain  in  dwelling  on  the  conjectured  story 
of  his  own  existence.  Persons  attracted  him,  as 
Hans  Meyrick  had  done,  in  proportion  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  his  defending  them,  rescuing  them,  tell- 
ing upon  their  lives  with  some  sort  of  redeeming 
influence;  and  he  had  to  resist  an  inclination, 
easily  accounted  for,  to  withdraw  coldly  from  the 
fortunate.  But  in  the  movement  which  had  led 
him  to  redeem  Gwendolen's  necklace  for  her,  and 
which  was  at  work  in  him  still,  there  was  some- 
thing beyond  his  habitual  compassionate  fervor 
— something  due  to  the  fascination  of  her  worn- 


110 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


anhood.  He  was  very  open  to  that  sort  of  charm, 
and  mingled  it  with  the  consciously  Utopian  pic- 
tures of  his  own  future ;  yet  any  one  able  to 
trace  the  folds  of  his  character  might  have  con- 
ceived that  he  would  be  more  likely  than  many 
less  passionate  men  to  love  a  woman  without 
telling  her  of  it.  Sprinkle  food  before  a  deli- 
cate-eared bird :  there  is  nothing  he  would  more 
willingly  take,  yet  he  keeps  aloof,  because  of  hia 
sensibility  to  checks  which  to  you  are  impercep- 
tible. And  one  man  differs  from  another,  as  we 
all  differ  from  the  Bosjesman,  in  a  sensibility  to 
checks,  that  come  from  variety  of  needs,  spiritual 
or  other.  It  seemed  to  foreshadow  that  capabili- 
ty of  reticence  in  Deronda  that  his  imagination 
was  much  occupied  with  two  women,  to  neither 
of  whom  would  he  have  held  it  possible  that  he 
should  ever  make  love.  Hans  Meyrick  had  laugh- 
ed at  him  for  having  something  of  the  knight- 
errant  hi  his  disposition ;  and  he  would  have  found 
his  proof  if  he  had  known  what  was  just  now  go- 
ing on  in  Deronda's  mind  about  Mirah  and  Gwen- 
dolen. 

He  wrote  without  delay  to  announce  the  visit  to 
Diplow,  and  received  in  reply  a  polite  assurance 
that  his  coming  would  give  great  pleasure.  That 
was  not  altogether  untrue.  Grandcourt  thought 
it  probable  that  the  visit  was  prompted  by  Sir 
Hugo's  desire  to  court  him  for  a  purpose  which 
he  did  not  make  up  his  mind  io  resist ;  and  it 
was  not  a  disagreeable  idea  to  him  that  this  fine 
fellow,  whom  he  believed  to  be  his  cousin  under 
the  rose,  would  witness,  perhaps  with  some  jeal- 
ousy, Henleigh  Mallinger  Grandcourt  play  the 
commanding  part  of  betrothed  lover  to  a  splen- 
did girl  whom  the  cousin  had  already  looked  at 
with  admiration. 

Grandcourt  himself  was  not  jealous  of  any 
thing  unless  it  threatened  his  mastery — which 
he  did  not  think  himself  h'kely  to  lose. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

"  Snrely  whoever  speaks  to  me  in  the  rigbt  voice, 

him  or  her  I  shall  follow, 
As  the  water  follows  the  moon,  silently, 
with  fluid  steps  any  where  around  the  globe." 
—WALT  WHITMAN. 

"  Now  my  cousins  are  at  Diplow,"  said  Grand- 
court,  "  will  you  go  there  ? — to-morrow  ?  The 
carriage  shall  come  for  Mrs.  Davilow.  You  can 
tell  me  what  you  would  like  done  in  the  rooms. 
Things  must  be  put  in  decent  order  while  we  are 
away  at  Ryelands.  And  to-morrow  is  the  only 
day." 

He  was  sitting  sideways  on  a  sofa  in  the  draw- 
ing-room at  Offendene,  one  hand  and  elbow  resting 
on  the  back,  and  the  other  hand  thrust  between 
his  crossed  knees — in  the  attitude  of  a  man  who 
is  much  interested  in  watching  the  person  next 
to  him.  Gwendolen,  who  had  always  disliked 
needle-work,  had  taken  to  it  with  apparent  zeal 
since  her  engagement,  and  now  held  a  piece  of 
white  embroidery  which  on  examination  would 
have  shown  many  false  stitches.  During  the  last 
eight  or  nine  days  their  hours  had  been  chiefly 
spent  on  horseback,  but  some  margin  had  always 
been  left  for  this  more  difficult  sort  of  compan- 
ionship, which,  however,  Gwendolen  had  not  found 
disagreeable.  She  was  very  well  satisfied  with 
Grandcourt.  His  answers  to  her  lively  questions 


about  what  he  had  seen  and  done  in  his  life  bore 
drawling  very  well.  From  the  first  she  had  no- 
ticed that  he  knew  what  to  say;  and  she  was 
constantly  feeling  not  only  that  he  had  nothing 
of  the  fool  in  his  composition,  but  that  by  some 
subtle  means  he  communicated  to  her  the  impres- 
sion that  all  the  folly  lay  with  other  people,  who 
did  what  he  did  not  care  to  do.  A  man  who 
seems  to  have  been  able  to  command  the  best 
has  a  sovereign  power  of  depreciation.  Then 
Grandcourt's  behavior  as  a  lover  had  hardly  at 
all  passed  the  limit  of  an  amorous  homage  which 
was  inobtrusive  as  a  wafted  odor  of  roses,  and 
spent  all  its  effect  in  a  gratified  vanity.  One  day, 
indeed,  he  had  kissed,  not  her  cheek,  but  her  neck 
a  little  below  her  ear ;  and  Gwendolen,  taken  by 
surprise,  had  started  up  with  a  marked  agitation 
which  made  him  rise  too  and  say,  "  I  beg  your 
pardon — did  I  annoy  you  ?"  "  Oh,  it  was  noth- 
ing," said  Gwendolen,  rather  afraid  of  herself, 
"  only  I  can  not  bear — to  be  kissed  under  my  ear." 
She  sat  down  again  with  a  little  playful  laugh, 
but  all  the  while  she  felt  her  heart  beating  with 
a  vague  fear :  she  was  no  longer  at  liberty  to  flout 
him  as  she  had  flouted  poor  Rex.  Her  agitation 
seemed  not  uncomplimentary,  and  he  had  been 
contented  not  to  transgress  again. 

To-day  a  slight  ram  hindered  riding ;  but  to 
compensate,  a  package  had  come  from  London, 
and  Mrs.  Davilow  had  just  left  the  room  after 
bringing  in  for  admiration  the  beautiful  things 
(of  Grandcourt's  ordering)  which  lay  scattered 
about  on  the  tables.  Gwendolen  was  just  then 
enjoying  the  scenery  of  her  life.  She  let  her 
hands  fall  on  her  lap,  and  said,  with  a  pretty  air 
of  perversity, 

"  Why  is  to-morrow  the  only  day  ?" 

"Because  the  next  day  is  the  first  with  the 
hounds,"  said  Grandcourt. 

"And  after  that?" 

"After  that  I  must  go  away  for  a  couple  of 
days — it's  a  bore — but  I  shall  go  one  day  and 
come  back  the  next."  Grandcourt  noticed  a 
change  in  her  face,  and  releasing  his  hand  from 
under  his  knees,  he  laid  it  on  hers,  and  said, 
"  You  object  to  my  going  away  ?" 

"  It  is  no  use  objecting,"  said  Gwendolen,  coldly. 
She  was  resisting  to  the  utmost  her  temptation  to 
tell  him  that  she  suspected  to  whom  he  was  going 
— and  the  temptation  to  make  a  clean  breast, 
speaking  without  restraint. 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Grandcourt,  infolding  her 
hand.  "  I  will  put  off  going.  And  I  will  travel 
at  night,  so  as  only  to  be  away  one  day."  He 
thought  that  he  knew  the  reason  of  what  he  in- 
wardly called  this  bit  of  temper,  and  she  was  par- 
ticularly fascinating  to  him  at  this  moment. 

"  Then  don't  put  off  going,  but  travel  at  night," 
said  Gwendolen,  feeling  that  she  could  command 
him,  and  finding  in  this  peremptoriness  a  small 
outlet  for  her  irritation. 

"  Then  you  will  go  to  Diplow  to-morrow  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  if  you  wish  it,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a 
high  tone  of  careless  assent.  Her  concentration 
in  other  feelings  had  really  hindered  her  from 
taking  notice  that  her  hand  was  being  held. 

"  How  you  treat  us  poor  devils  of  men,"  said 
Grandcourt,  lowering  his  tone.  "  We  are  always 
getting  the  worst  of  it." 

"  Are  you  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a  tone  of  in- 
quiry, looking  at  him  more  naively  than  usual. 
She  longed  to  believe  this  commonplace  badi- 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


Ill 


nage  as  the  serious  truth  about  her  lover  :  in  that 
case,  she  too  was  justified.  If  she  knew  every 
thing,  Mrs.  Glasher  would  appear  more  blamable 
than  Grandcourt.  "  Are  you  always  getting  the 
worst  ?" 

"Yes.  Are  you  as  kind  to  me  as  I  am  to 
you  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  looking  into  her  eyes 
with  his  narrow  gaze. 

Gwendolen  felt  herself  stricken.  She  was  con- 
scious of  having  received  so  much,  that  her  sense 
of  command  was  checked,  and  sank  away  in  the 
perception  that,  look  round  her  as  she  might,  she 
could  not  turn  back  :  it  was  as  if  she  had  con- 
sented to  mount  a  chariot  where  another  held  the 
reins  ;  and  it  was  not  in  her  nature  to  leap  out 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  She  had  not  consented 
in  ignorance,  and  all  she  could  say  now  would  be 
a  confession  that  she  had  not  been  ignorant.  Her 
right  to  explanation  was  gone.  All  she  had  to  do 
now  was  to  adjust  herself  so  that  the  spikes  of 
that  unwilling  penance  which  conscience  imposed 
should  not  gall  her.  With  a  sort  of  mental  shiv- 
er, she  resolutely  changed  her  mental  attitude. 
There  had  been  a  little  pause,  during  which  she 
had  not  turned  away  her  eyes  ;  and  with  a  sudden 
break  into  a  smile,  she  said, 

"  If  I  were  as  kind  to  you  as  you  are  to  me,  that 
would  spoil  your  generosity  :  it  would  no  longer 
be  as  great  as  it  could  be  —  and  it  is  that  now." 

"Then  I  am  not  to  ask  for  one  kiss?"  said 
Grandcourt,  contented  to  pay  a  large  price  for 
this  new  kind  of  love-making,  which  introduced 
marriage  by  the  finest  contrast. 

"  Not  one  !"  said  Gwendolen,  getting  saucy, 
.and  nodding  at  him  defiantly. 

He  lifted  her  little  left  hand  to  his  lips,  and 
then  released  it  respectfully.  Clearly  it  was 
faint  praise  to  say  of  him  that  he  was  not  dis- 
gusting :  he  was  almost  charming  ;  and  she  felt 
at  this  moment  that  it  was  not  likely  she  could 
ever  have  loved  another  man  better  than  this 
one.  His  reticence  gave  her  some  inexplicable, 
delightful  consciousness. 

Apropos,"  she   said,  taking   up  her   work 
in,  "  is  there  any  one  besides  Captain  and 

rs.  Torrington  at  Diplow  ?—  or  do  you  leave 
them  tete-d-tete?  I  suppose  he  converses  in  ci- 
gars, and  she  answers  with  her  chignon." 

"  She  has  a  sister  with  her,"  said  Grandcourt, 
with  his  shadow  of  a  smile,  "  and  there  are  two 
men  besides  —  one  of  them  you  know,  I  believe." 

"Ah,  then  I  have  a  poor  opinion  of  him,"  said 
Gwendolen,  shaking  her  head. 

"  You  saw  him  at  Leubronn  —  young  Deronda 
—  a  young  fellow  with  the  Mallingers." 

Gwendolen  felt  as  if  her  heart  were  making  a 
sudden  gambol,  and  her  fingers,  which  tried  to 
keep  a  firm  hold  on  her  work,  got  cold. 

"  I  never  spoke  to  him,"  she  said,  dreading  any 
discernible  change  in  herself.  "Is  he  not  dis- 
agreeable V" 

"  No,  not  particularly,"  said  Grandcourt,  in  his 
most  languid  way.  "He  thinks  a  little  too  much 
of  himself.  I  supposed  he  had  been  introduced 
to  you." 

"  No.  Some  one  told  me  his  name  the  evening 
before  I  came  away.  That  was  all.  What  is  he  ?" 

"A  sort  of  ward  of  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger's. 
Nothing  of  any  consequence." 

"  Oh,  poor  creature  !  How  very  unpleasant  for 
him!"  said  Gwendolen,  speaking  from  the  lip, 
and  not  meaning  any  sarcasm.  "  I  wonder  if  it 


agai 

Mrs. 


has  left  off  raining  ?"  she  added,  rising  and  going 
to  look  out  of  the  window. 

Happily  it  did  not  rain  the  next  day,  and 
Gwendolen  rode  to  Diplow  on  Criterion,  as  she 
bad  done  on  that  former  day  when  she  returned 
with  her  mother  in  the  carriage.  She  always  felt 
the  more  daring  for  being  in  her  riding  dress, 
besides  having  the  agreeable  belief  that  she  look- 
ed as  well  as  possible  in  it — a  sustaining  con- 
sciousness in  any  meeting  which  seems  formida- 
ble. Her  anger  toward  Deronda  had  changed 
nto  a  superstitious  dread — due,  perhaps,  to  the 
coercion  he  had  exercised  over  her  thought — lest 
that  first  interference  of  his  in  her  life  might 
foreshadow  some  future  influence.  It  is  of  such 
stuff  that  superstitions  are  commonly  made :  an 
intense  feeling  about  ourselves  which  makes  the 
evening-star  shine  at  us  with  a  threat,  and  the 
blessing  of  a  beggar  encourage  us.  And  super- 
stitions carry  consequences  which  often  verify 
their  hope  or  their  foreboding. 

The  time  before  luncheon  was  taken  up  for 
Gwendolen  by  going  over  the  rooms  with  Mrs. 
Torrington  and  Mrs.  Davilow ;  and  she  thought  it 
likely  that  if  she  saw  Deronda,  there  would  hard- 
ly be  need  for  more  than  a  bow  between  them. 
She  meant  to  notice  him  as  little  as  possible. 

And,  after  all,  she  found  herself  under  an  in- 
ward compulsion  too  strong  for  her  pride.  From 
the  first  moment  of  their  being  in  the  room  to- 
gether, she  seemed  to  herself  to  be  doing  nothing 
but  notice  him :  every  thing  else  was  automatic 
performance  of  a  habitual  part. 

When  he  took  his  place  at  lunch,  Grandcourt 
had  said,  "  Deronda,  Miss  Harleth  tells  me  you 
were  not  introduced  to  her  at  Leubronn." 

"  Miss  Harleth  hardly  remembers  me,  I  imag- 
ine," said  Deronda,  looking  at  her  quite  simply, 
as  they  bowed.  "She  was  intensely  occupied 
when  I  saw  her." 

Now  did  he  suppose  that  she  had  not  suspect- 
ed him  of  being  the  person  who  redeemed  her 
necklace  ? 

'  On  the  contrary.  I  remember  you  very  well," 
said  Gwendolen,  feeling  rather  nervous,  but  gov- 
erning herself,  and  looking  at  him  in  return  with 
new  examination.  "  You  did  not  approve  of  my 
playing  at  roulette." 

"  How  did  you  come  to  that  conclusion  ?"  said 
Deronda,  gravely. 

"Oh,  you  cast  an  evil-eye  on  my  play,"  said 
Gwendolen,  with  a  turn  of  her  head  and  a  smile. 
"  I  began  to  lose  as  soon  as  you  came  to  look  on. 
I  had  always  been  winning  till  then." 

"  Roulette  in  such  a  kennel  as  Leubronn  is  a 
horrid  bore,"  said  Grandcourt. 

"/found  it  a  bore  when  I  began  to  lose,"  said 
Gwendolen.  Her  face  was  turned  toward  Grand- 
court  as  she  smiled  and  spoke,  but  she  gave  a 
sidelong  glance  at  Deronda,  and  saw  his  eyes  fixed 
on  her  with  a  look  so  gravely  penetrating  that  it 
had  a  keener  edge  for  her  than  his  ironical  smile 
at  her  losses — a  keener  edge  than  Klesmer's  judg- 
ment. She  wheeled  her  neck  round  as  if  she 
wanted  to  listen  to  what  was  being  said  by  the 
rest,  while  she  was  only  thinking  of  Deronda. 
His  face  had  that  disturbing  kind  of  form  and 
expression  which  threatens  to  affect  opinion — as 
if  one's  standard  were  somehow  wrong.  (Who 
has  not  seen  men  with  faces  of  this  corrective 
power  till  they  frustrated  it  by  speech  or  action  ?) 
His  voice,  heard  now  for  the  first  time,  was  to 


112 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


Grandcourt's  toneless  drawl,  which  had  been  La 
her  ears  every  day,  as  the  deep  notes  of  a  violon- 
cello to  the  broken  discourse  of  poultry  and  oth- 
er lazy  gentry  in  the  afternoon  sunshine.  Grand- 
court,  she  inwardly  conjectured,  was  perhaps  right 
in  saying  that  Deronda  thought  too  much  of  him- 
self— a  favorite  way  of  explaining  a  superiority 
that  humiliates.  However,  the  talk  turned  on  the 
rinderpest  and  Jamaica,  and  no  more  was  said 
about  roulette.  Grandcourt  held  that  the  Jamai- 
can negro  was  a  beastly  sort  of  baptist  Caliban ; 
Deronda  said  he  had  always  felt  a  little  with  Cali- 
ban, who  naturally  had  his  own  point  of  view,  and 
could  sing  a  good  song ;  Mrs.  Davilow  observed 
that  her  father  had  an  estate  in  Barbadoes,  but 
that  she  herself  had  never  been  in  the  West  In- 
dies ;  Mrs.  Torrington  was  sure  she  should  never 
sleep  in  her  bed  if  she  lived  among  blacks ;  her 
husband  corrected  her  by  saying  that  the  blacks 
would  be  manageable  enough  if  it  were  not  for 
the  half-breeds ;  and  Deronda  remarked  that  the 
whites  had  to  thank  themselves  for  the  half- 
breeds. 

While  this  polite  pea-shooting  was  going  on, 
Gwendolen  trifled  with  her  jelly,  and  looked  at 
every  speaker  in  turn,  that  she  might  feel  at  ease 
in  looking  at  Deronda. 

"  I  wonder  what  he  thinks  of  me  really  ?  He 
must  have  felt  interested  in  me,  else  he  would 
not  have  sent  me  my  necklace.  I  wonder  what 
he  thinks  of  my  marriage  ?  What  notions  has 
he  to  make  him  so  grave  about  things  ?  Why  is 
he  come  to  Diplow  ?" 

These  questions  ran  in  her  mind  as  the  voice 
of  an  uneasy  longing  to  be  judged  by  Deronda 
with  unmixed  admiration — a  longing  which  had 
had  its  seed  in  her  first  resentment  at  his  critical 
glance.  Why  did  she  care  so  much  about  the 
opinion  of  this  man  who  was  "  nothing  of  any 
consequence  ?"  She  had  no  time  to  find  the  rea- 
son— she  was  too  much  engaged  in  caring.  In 
the  drawing-room,  when  something  had  called 
Grandcourt  away,  she  went  quite  unpremeditated- 
ly  up  to  Deronda,  who  was  standing  at  a  table 
apart,  turning  over  some  prints,  and  said  to  him, 

"  Shall  you  hunt  to-morrow,  Mr.  Deronda  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  believe  so." 

"  You  don't  object  to  hunting,  then  ?" 

"  I  find  excuses  for  it.  It  is  a  sin  I  am  inclined 
to — when  I  can't  get  boating  or  cricketing." 

"  Do  you  object  to  my  hunting  ?"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, with  a  saucy  movement  of  the  chin. 

"  I  have  no  right  to  object  to  any  thing  you 
choose  to  do." 

"  You  thought  you  had  a  right  to  object  to  my 
gambling,"  persisted  Gwendolen. 

"  I  was  sorry  for  it.  I  am  not  aware  that  I 
told  you  of  my  objection,"  said  Deronda,  with  his 
usual  directness  of  gaze — a  large-eyed  gravity,  in- 
nocent of  any  intention.  His  eyes  had  a  pecul- 
iarity which  has  drawn  many  men  into  trouble  : 
they  were  of  a  dark  yet  mild  intensity,  which 
seemed  to  express  a  special  interest  in  every  one 
on  whom  he  fixed  them,  and  might  easily  help  to 
bring  on  him  those  claims  which  ardently  sym- 
pathetic people  are  often  creating  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  need  help.  In  mendicant  fashion, 
we  make  the  goodness  of  others  a  reason  for  ex- 
orbitant demands  on  them.  That  sort  of  effect 
was  penetrating  Gwendolen. 

"  You  hindered  me  from  gambling  again,"  she 
answered.  But  she  had  no  sooner  spoken  than 


she  blushed  over  face  and  neck;  and  Deronda 
blushed  too,  conscious  that  in  the  little  affair  of  the 
necklace  he  had  taken  a  questionable  freedom. 

It  was  impossible  to  speak  further;  and  she 
turned  away  to  a  window,  feeling  that  she  had 
stupidly  said  what  she  had  not  meant  to  say, 
and  yet  being  rather  happy  that  she  had  plunged 
into  this  mutual  understanding.  Deronda  also 
did  not  dislike  it.  Gwendolen  seemed  more  de- 
cidedly attractive  than  before ;  and  certainly 
there  had  been  changes  going  on  within  her  since 
that  time  at  Leubronn :  the  struggle  of  mind  at- 
tending a  conscious  error  had  wakened  something 
like  a  new  soul,  which  had  better,  but  also  worse, 
possibilities  than  her  former  poise  of  crude  self- 
confidence  :  among  the  forces  she  had  come  to 
dread  was  something  within  her  that  troubled 
satisfaction. 

•  That  evening  Mrs.  Davilow  said,  "  Was  it  real- 
ly so,  or  only  a  joke  of  yours,  about  Mr.  Deronda's 
spoiling  your  play,  Gwen  ?" 

Her  curiosity  had  been  excited,  and  she  could 
venture  to  ask  a  question  that  did  not  concern 
Mr.  Grandcourt. 

"  Oh,  it  merely  happened  that  he  was  looking 
on  when  I  began  to  lose,"  said  Gwendolen,  care- 
lessly. "  I  noticed  him." 

"  I  don't  wonder  at  that :  he  is  a  striking  young 
man.  He  puts  me  in  mind  of  Italian  paintings. 
One  would  guess,  without  being  told,  that  there 
was  foreign  blood  in  his  veins." 

"  Is  there'?"  said  Gwendolen. 

"  Mrs.  Torrington  says  so.  I  asked  particular- 
ly who  he  was,  and  she  told  me  that  his  mother 
was  some  foreigner  of  high  rank." 

"  His  mother  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  rather  sharp- 
ly. "  Then  who  was  his  father  ?" 

"Well — every  one  says  he  is  the  son  of  Sir 
Hugo  Mallinger,  who  brought  him  up ;  though  he 
passes  for  a  ward.  She  says,  if  Sir  Hugo  Mal- 
linger could  have  done  as  he  liked  with  his  es- 
tates, he  would  have  left  them  to  this  Mr.  Deron- 
da, since  he  has  no  legitimate  son." 

Gwendolen  was  silent ;  but  her  mother  observed 
so  marked  an  effect  in  her  face  that  she  was  an- 
gry with  herself  for  having  repeated  Mrs.  Tor- 
rington's  gossip.  It  seemed,  on  reflection,  un- 
suited  to  the  ear  of  her  daughter,  for  whom  Mrs. 
Davilow  disliked  what  is  called  knowledge  of  the 
world;  and  indeed  she  wished  that  she  herself 
had  not  had  any  of  it  thrust  upon  her. 

An  image  which  had  immediately  arisen  in 
Gwendolen's  mind  was  that  of  the  unknown 
mother — no  doubt  a  dark-eyed  woman — probably 
sad.  Hardly  any  face  couid  be  less  like  Deron- 
da's than  that  represented  as  Sir  Hugo's  in  a 
crayon  portrait  at  Diplow.  A  dark-eyed  beauti- 
ful woman,  no  longer  young,  had  become  "  stuff 
o'  the  conscience"  to  Gwendolen. 

That  night,  when  she  had  got  into  her  little 
bed,  and  only  a  dim  light  was  burning,  she  said, 

"  Mamma,  have  men  generally  children  before 
they  are  married  ?" 

"  No,  dear,  no,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow.  "  Why  do 
you  ask  such  a  question  ?"  (But  she  began  to 
think  that  she  saw  the  why.) 

"  If  it  were  so,  I  ought  to  know,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, with  some  indignation. 

"  You  are  thinking  of  what  I  said  about  Mr. 
Deronda  and  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger.  That  is  a  very 
unusual  case,  dear." 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


113 


"Does  Lady  Mallinger  know?" 

"She  knows  enough  to  satisfy  her.  That  is 
quite  clear,  because  Mr.  Deronda  has  lived  with 
them." 

"  And  people  think  no  worse  of  him  ?" 

"Well,  of  course  he  is  under  some  disadvan- 
tage: it  is  not  as  if  he  were  Lady  Mallinger's 
son.  He  does  not  inherit  the  property,  and  he 
is  not  of  any  consequence  in  the  world.  But 
people  are  not  obliged  to  know  any  thing  about 
his  birth.  You  see,  he  is  very  well  received." 

"  I  wonder  whether  he  knows  about  it,  and 
whether  he  is  angry  with  his  father  ?" 

"My  dear  child,  why  should  you  think  of 
that?" 

"  Why  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  impetuously,  sitting 
up  in  her  bed.  "  Haven't  children  reason  to  be 
angry  with  their  parents  ?  How  can  they  help 
their  parents  marrying  or  not  marrying  ?" 

But  a  consciousness  rushed  upon  her,  which 
made  her  fall  back  again  on  her  pillow.  It  was 
not  only  what  she  would  have  felt  months  be- 
fore— that  she  might  seem  to  be  reproaching 
her  mother  for  that  second  marriage  of  hers; 
what  she  chiefly  felt  now  was  that  she  had  been 
led  on  to  a  condemnation  which  seemed  to  make 
her  own  marriage  a  forbidden  thing. 

There  was  no  further  talk,  and  till  sleep  came 
over  her,  Gwendolen  lay  struggling  with  the  rea- 
sons against  that  marriage — reasons  which  press- 
ed upon  her  newly  now  that  they  were  unexpect- 
edly mirrored  in  the  story  of  a  man  whose  slight 
relations  with  her  had,  by  some  hidden  affinity, 
bitten  themselves  into  the  most  permanent  layers 
of  feeling".  It  was  characteristic  that,  with  all 
her  debating,  she  was  never  troubled-  by  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  indefensibleness  of  her  marriage 
did  not  include  the  fact  that  she  had  accepted 
Grandcourt  solely  as  the  man  whom  it  was  con- 
venient for  her  to  marry,  not  in  the  least  as  one 
to  whom  she  would  be  binding  herself  in  duty. 
Gwendolen's  ideas  were  pitiably  crude ;  but  many 
grand  difficulties  of  life  are  apt  to  force  them- 
selves on  us  in  our  crudity.  And  to  judge  wise- 
ly I  suppose  we  must  know  how  things  appear 
to  the  unwise,  that  kind  of  appearance  making 
the  larger  part  of  the  world's  history. 

In  the  morning  there  was  a  double  excitement 
for  her.  She  was  going  to  hunt,  from  which 
scruples  about  propriety  had  threatened  to  hin- 
der her,  until  it  was  found  that  Mrs.  Torrington 
was  horsewoman  enough  to  accompany  her — go- 
ing to  hunt  for  the  first  tune  since  her  escapade 
with  Rex ;  and  she  was  going  again  to  see  De- 
ronda, in  whom,  since  last  night,  her  interest  had 
so  gathered  that  she  expected,  as  people  do  about 
revealed  celebrities,  to  see  something  in  his  ap- 
pearance which  she  had  missed  before.  What 
was  he  going  to  be  ?  What  sort  of  life  had  he 
before  him — he  being  nothing  of  any  conse- 
quence? And  with  only  a  little  difference  in 
events  he  might  have  been  as  important  as 
Grandcourt,  nay — her  imagination  inevitably  went 
in  that  direction — might  have  held  the  very  es- 
tates which  Grandcourt  was  to  have.  But  now 
Deronda  would  probably  some  day  see  her  mis- 
tress of  the  Abbey  at  Topping,  see  her  bearing 
the  title  which  would  have  been  his  own  wife's. 
These  obvious,  futile  thoughts  of  what  might 
have  been,  made  a  new  epoch  for  Gwendolen. 
She,  whose  unquestioning  .habit  it  had  been  to 
take  the  best  that  came  to'  her  for  less  than  her 
H 


own  claim,  had  now  to  see  the  position  which 
tempted  her  hi  a  new  light,  as  a  hard,  unfair  ex- 
clusion of  others.  What  she  had  now  heard 
about  Deronda  seemed  to  her  imagination  to 
throw  him  into  one  group  with  Mrs.  Glasher  and 
her  children,  before  whom  she  felt  herself  in  an 
attitude  of  apology — she  who  had  hitherto  been 
surrounded  by  a  group  that  hi  her  opinion  had 
need  be  apologetic  to  her.  Perhaps  Deronda 
himself  was  thinking  of  these  things.  Could  he 
know  of  Mrs.  Glasher?  If  he  knew  that  she 
knew,  he  would  despise  her;  but  he  could  have 
no  such  knowledge.  Would  he,  without  that, 
despise  her  for  marrying  Grandcourt  ?  His  pos- 
sible judgment  of  her  actions  was  telling  on 
her  as  importunately  as  Klesmer's  judgment  of 
her  powers ;  but  she  found  larger  room  for  re- 
sistance to  a  disapproval  of  her  marriage,  be- 
cause it  is  easier  to  make  our  conduct  seem  jus- 
tifiable to  ourselves  than  to  make  our  ability 
strike  others.  "  How  can  I  help  it  ?"  is  not  our 
favorite  apology  for  incompetence.  But  Gwen- 
dolen felt  some  strength  in  saying, 

"How  can  I  help  what  other  people  have 
done  ?  Things  would  not  come  right  if  I  were 
to  turn  round  now  and  declare  that  I  would  not 
marry  Mr.  Grandcourt."  And  such  turning  round 
was  out  of  the  question.  The  horses  in  the  char- 
iot she  had  mounted  were  going  at  full  speed. 

This  mood  of  youthful,  elated  desperation  had 
a  tidal  recurrence.  She  could  dare  any  thing 
that  lay  before  her  sooner  than  she  could  choose 
to  go  backward  into  humiliation ;  and  it  was  even 
soothing  to  think  that  there  would  now  be  as 
much  ill-doing  in  the  one  as  in  the  other.  But 
the  immediate  delightful  fact  was  the  hunt,  where 
she  would  see  Deronda,  and  where  he  would  see 
her ;  for  always  lurking  ready  to  obtrude  before 
other  thoughts  about  him  was  the  impression 
that  he  was  very  much  interested  in  her.  But 
to-day  she  was  resolved  not  to  repeat  her  folly 
of  yesterday,  as  if  she  were  anxious  to  say  any 
thing  to  him.  Indeed,  the  hunt  would  be  too  ab- 
sorbing. 

And  so  it  was  for  a  long  while.  Deronda  was 
there,  and  within  her  sight  very  often ;  but  this 
only  added  to  the  stimulus  of  a  pleasure  which 
Gwendolen  had  only  once  before  tasted,  and  which 
seemed  likely  always  to  give  a  delight  independ- 
ent of  any  crosses,  except  such  as  took  away  the 
chance  of  riding.  No  accident  happened  to  throw 
them  together;  the  run  took  them  within  con- 
venient reach  of  home,  and  in  the  agreeable  som- 
breness  of  the  gray  November  afternoon,  with  a 
long  stratum  of  yellow  light  in  the  west,  Gwen- 
dolen was  returning  with  the  company  from  Dip- 
low,  who  were  attending  her  on  the  way  to  Offen- 
dene.  Now  that  the  sense  of  glorious  excite- 
ment was  over  and  gone,  she  was  getting  irritably 
disappointed  that  she  had  had  no  opportunity  of 
speaking  to  Deronda,  whom  she  would  not  see 
again,  since  he  was  to  go  away  hi  a  couple  of 
days.  What  was  she  going  to  say?  That  was 
not  quite  certain.  She  wanted  to  speak  to  him. 
Grandcourt  was  by  her  side ;  Mrs.  Torrington,  her 
husband,  and  another  gentleman  in  advance ;  and 
Deronda's  horse  she  could  hear  behind.  The 
wish  to  speak  to  him  and  have  him  speaking  to 
her  was  becoming  imperious ;  and  there  was  no 
chance  of  it,  unless  she  simply  asserted  her  will 
and  defied  every  thing.  Where  the  order  of 
things  could  give  way  to  Miss  Gwendolen,  it  must 


114 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


be  made  to  do  so.  They  had  lately  emerged  from 
a  wood  of  pines  and  beeches,  where  the  twilight 
stillness  had  a  repressing  effect,  which  increased 
her  impatience.  The  horse-hoofs  again  heard 
behind  at  some  little  distance  were  a  growing  ir- 
ritation. She  reined  in  her  horse  and  looked  be- 
hind her;  Grandcourt,  after  a  few  paces,  also 
paused ;  but  she,  waving  her  whip  and  nodding 
sideways  with  playful  imperiousness,  said,  "  Go 
on.  I  want  to  speak  to  Mr.  Deronda." 

Grandcourt  hesitated ;  but  that  he  would  have 
done  after  any  proposition.  It  was  an  awkward 
situation  for  him.  No  gentleman,  before  marriage, 
could  give  the  emphasis  of  refusal  to  a  command 
delivered  in  this  playful  way.  He  rode  on  slowly, 
and  she  waited  till  Deronda  came  up.  He  looked 
at  her  with  tacit  inquiry,  and  she  said  at  once, 
letting  her  horse  go  alongside  of  his, 
.  "Mr.  Deronda,  you  must  enlighten  my  igno- 
rance. I  want  to  know  why  you  thought  it 
wrong  for  me  to  gamble.  Is  it  because  I  am  a 
woman  ?" 

"Not  altogether;  but  I  regretted  it  the  more 
because  you  were  a  woman,"  said  Deronda,  with 
an  irrepressible  smile.  Apparently  it  must  be 
understood  between  them  now  that  it  was  he  who 
sent  the  necklace.  "  I  think  it  would  be  better 
for  men  not  to  gamble.  It  is  a  besotting  kind  of 
taste,  likely  to  turn  into  a  disease.  And,  besides, 
there  is  something  revolting  to  me  in  raking  a 
heap  of  money  together,  and  internally  chuckling 
over  it,  when  others  are  feeling  the  loss  of  it.  I 
should  even  call  it  base,  if  it  were  more  than  an 
exceptional  lapse.  There  are  enough  inevitable 
turns  of  fortune  which  force  us  to  see  that  our 
gain  is  another's  loss:  that  is  one  of  the  ugly 
aspects  of  life.  One  would  like  to  reduce  it  as 
much  as  one  could,  not  get  amusement  out  of 
exaggerating  it."  Deronda's  voice  had  gathered 
some  indignation  while  he  was  speaking. 

"  But  you  do  admit  that  we  can't  help  things," 
said  Gwendolen,  with  a  drop  in  her  tone.  The 
answer  had  not  been  any  thing  like  what  she  had 
expected.  "  I  mean  that  things  are  so  in  spite 
of  us ;  we  can't  always  help  it  that  our  gain  is 
another's  loss." 

"  Clearly.  Because  of  that,  we  should  help  it 
where  we  can." 

Gwendolen,  biting  her  lip  inside,  paused  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  forcing  herself  to  speak  with  an 
air  of  playfulness  again,  said, 

"  But  why  should  you  regret  it  more  because  I 
am  a  woman  ?" 

"  Perhaps  because  we  need  that  you  should  be 
better  than  we  are." 

"But  suppose  we  need  that  men  should  be  bet- 
ter than  we  are,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  little  air 
of  "check!" 

"That  is  rather  a  difficulty,"  said  Deronda, 
smiling.  "  I  suppose  I  should  have  said,  we  each 
of  us  tliink  it  would  be  better  for  the  other  to  be 
good." 

"You  see,  I  needed  you  to  be  better  than  I 
was — and  you  thought  so,"  said  Gwendolen,  nod- 
ding and  laughing,  while  she  put  her  horse  for- 
ward and  joined  Grandcourt,  who  made  no  obser- 
vation. 

"  Don't  you  want  to  know  what  I  had  to  say  to 
Mr.  Deronda  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  whose  own  pride 
required  her  to  account  for  her  conduct. 

"  A — no,"  said  Grandcourt,  coldly. 

"Now  that  is  the  first  impolite  word  you  have 


spoken — that  you  don't  wish  to  hear  what  I  had 
to  say,"  said  Gwendolen,  playing  at  a  pout. 

"  I  wish  to  hear  what  you  say  to  me — not  to 
other  men,"  said  Grandcourt. 

"Then  you  wish  to  hear  this.  I  wanted  to 
make  him  tell  me  why  he  objected  to  my  gam- 
bling, and  he  gave  me  a  little  sermon." 

"  Yes — but  excuse  me  the  sermon."  If  Gwen- 
dolen imagined  that  Grandcourt  cared  about  her 
speaking  to  Deronda,  he  wished  her  to  under- 
stand that  she  was  mistaken.  But  he  was  not 
fond  of  being  told  to  ride  on.  She  saw  he  was 
piqued,  but  did  not  mind.  She  had  accomplished 
her  object  of  speaking  again  to  Deronda  before 
he  raised  his  hat  and  turned  with  the  rest  toward 
Diplow,  while  her  lover  attended  her  to  Off endene, 
where  he  was  to  bid  farewell  before  a  whole  day's 
absence  on  the  unspecified  journey.  Grandcourt 
had  spoken  truth  in  calling  the  journey  a  bore : 
he  was  going  by  train  to  Gadsmere. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

No  penitence  and  no  confessional : 

No  priest  ordains  it,  yet  they're  forced  to  elt 

Amid  deep  ashes  of  their  vanished  years. 

IMAGINE  a  rambling,  patchy  house,  the  best 
part  built  of  gray  stone,  and  red  tiled,  a  round 
tower  jutting  at  one  of  the  corners,  the  mellow 
darkness  of  its  conical  roof  surmounted  by  a 
weather-cock,  making  an  agreeable  object  either 
amidst  the  gleams  and  greenth  of  summer  or  the 
low-hanging  clouds  and  snowy  branches  of  win- 
ter :  the  grounds  shady  with  spreading  trees  :  a 
great  cedar  flourishing  on  one  side,  backward  some 
Scotch  firs  on  a  broken  bank  where  the  roots  hung 
naked,  and  beyond  a  rookery :  on  the  other  side  a 
pool  overhung  with  bushes,  where  the  water-fowl 
fluttered  and  screamed :  all  around  a  vast  mead- 
ow, which  might  be  called  a  park,  bordered  by 
an  old  plantation  and  guarded  by  stone  lodges 
which  looked  like  little  prisons.  Outside  the 
gate  the  country,  once  entirely  rural  and  lovely, 
now  black  with  coal  mines,  was  chiefly  peopled  by 
men  and  brethren  with  candles  stuck  in  their  hats, 
and  with  a  diabolic  complexion  which  laid  them 
peculiarly  open  to  suspicion  in  the  eyes  of  the 
children  at  Gadsmere — Mrs.  Glasher's  four  beau- 
tiful children,  who  had  dwelt  there  for  about 
three  years.  Now,  in  November,  when  the  flower 
beds  were  empty,  the  trees  leafless,  and  the  pool 
blackly  shivering,  one  might  have  said  that  the 
place  was  sombrely  in  keeping  with  the  black 
roads  and  black  mounds  which  seemed  to  put  the 
district  in  mourning — except  when  the  children 
were  playing  on  the  gravel  with  the  dogs  for  their 
companions.  But  Mrs.  Glasher  under  her  present 
circumstances  liked  Gadsmere  as  well  as  she 
would  have  liked  any  other  abode.  The  com- 
plete seclusion  of  the  place,  which  the  unattract- 
iveness  of  the  country  secured,  was  exactly  to 
her  taste.  When  she  drove  her  two  ponies  with 
a  wagonette  full  of  children,  there  were  no  gent- 
ry in  carriages  to  be  met,  only  men  of  business 
in  gigs ;  at  church  there  were  no  eyes  she  cared 
to  avoid,  for  the  curate's  wife  and  the  curate 
himself  were  cither  ignorant  of  any  thing  to  her 
disadvantage,  or  ignored  it:  to  them  she  was 
simply  a  widow  lady,  the  tenant  of  Gadsmcre; 
and  the  name  of  Grandcourt  was  of  little  inter- 
est in  that  district  compared  with  the  names  of 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


115 


Fletcher  and  Gawcome,  the  lessees  of  the  col- 
lieries. 

It  was  full  ten  years  since  the  elopement  of 
an  Irish  officer's  beautiful  wife  with  young  Grand- 
court,  and  a  consequent  duel  where  the  bullets 
wounded  the  air  only,  had  made  some  little  noise. 
Most  of  those  who  remembered  the  affair  now 
wondered  what  had  become  of  that  Mrs.  Glasher 
whose  beauty  and  brilliancy  had  made  her  rather 
conspicuous  to  them  in  foreign  places,  where  she 
was  known  to  be  living  with  young  Grandcourt. 

That  he  should  have  disentangled  himself  from 
that  connection  seemed  only  natural  and  desir- 
able. As  to  her,  it  was  thought  that  a  woman 
who  was  understood  to  have  forsaken  her  child 
along  with  her  husband  had  probably  sunk  lower. 
Grandcourt  had  of  course  got  weary  of  her.  He 
was  much  given  to  the  pursuit  of  women ;  but  a 
man  in  his  position  would  by  this  time  desire  to 
make  a  suitable  marriage  with  the  fair  young 
daughter  of  a  noble  house.  No  one  talked  of 
Mrs.  Glasher  now,  any  more  than  they  talked  of 
the  victim  in  a  trial  for  manslaughter  ten  years 
before :  she  was  a  lost  vessel  after  whom  nobody 
would  send  out  an  expedition  of  search;  but 
Grandcourt  was  seen  in  harbor  with  his  colors 
flying,  registered  as  sea-worthy  as  ever. 

Yet  in  fact  Grandcourt  had  never  disentangled 
himself  from  Mrs.  Glasher.  His  passion  for  her 
had  been  the  strongest  and  most  lasting  he  had 
ever  known ;  and  though  it  was  now  as  dead  as 
the  music  of  a  cracked  flute,  it  had  left  a  certain 
dull  disposedness,  which  on  the  death  of  her  hus- 
band three  years  before  had  prompted  in  him  a 
vacillating  notion  of  marrying  her,  in  accordance 
with  the  understanding  often  expressed  between 
them  during  the  days  of  his  first  ardor.  At  that 
early  time  Grandcourt  would  willingly  have  paid 
for  the  freedom  to  be  won  by  a  divorce ;  but  the 
husband  would  not  oblige  him,  not  wanting  to  be 
married  again  himself,  and  not  wishing  to  have 
his  domestic  habits  printed  in  evidence. 

The  altered  poise  which  the  years  had  brought 
in  Mrs.  Glasher  was  just  the  reverse.  At  first  she 
was  comparatively  careless  about  the  possibility  of 
marriage.  It  was  enough  that  she  had  escaped 
from  a  disagreeable  husband  and  found  a  sort  of 
bliss  with  a  lover  who  had  completely  fascinated 
her — young,  handsome,  amorous,  and  living  in  the 
best  style,  with  equipage  and  conversation  en  mite, 
of  the  kind  to  be  expected  in  young  men  of  for- 
tune who  have  seen  every  thing.  She  was  an  im- 
passioned, vivacious  woman,  fond  of  adoration, 
exasperated  by  five  years  of  marital  rudeness ;  and 
the  sense  of  release  was  so  strong  upon  her  that  it 
stilled  anxiety  for  more  than  she  actually  enjoyed. 
An  equivocal  position  was  of  no  importance  to  her 
then ;  she  had  no  envy  for  the  honors  of  a  dull, 
disregarded  wife :  the  one  spot  which  spoiled  her 
vision  of  her  new  pleasant  world  was  the  sense 
that  she  had  left  her  three-year-old  boy,  who  died 
two  years  afterward,  and  whose  first  tones  saying 
"  mamma"  retained  a  difference  from  those  of  the 
children  that  came  after.  But  now  the  years  had 
brought  many  changes  besides  those  in  the  con- 
tour of  her  cheek  and  throat ;  and  that  Grand- 
court  should  marry  her  had  become  her  dominant 
desire.  The  equivocal  position  which  she  had  not 
minded  about  for  herself  was  now  telling  upon 
her  through  her  children,  whom  she  loved  with  a 
devotion  charged  with  the  added  passion  of  atone- 
ment. She  had  no  repentance  except  in  this  di- 


rection. If  Grandcourt  married  her,  the  children 
would  be  none  the  worse  off  for  what  had  passed : 
they  would  see  their  mother  in  a  dignified  position, 
and  they  would  be  at  no  disadvantage  with  the 
world :  her  son  would  be  made  his  father's  heir.  It 
was  the  yearning  for  this  result  which  gave  the  su- 
preme importance  to  Grandcourt's  feeling  for  her ; 
her  love  for  him  had  long  resolved  itself  into  anx- 
iety that  he  should  give  her  the  unique,  permanent 
claim  of  a  wife,  and  she  expected  no  other  hap- 
piness hi  marriage  than  the  satisfaction  of  her 
maternal  love  and  pride — including  her  pride  for 
herself  in  the  presence  of  her  children.  For  the 
sake  of  that  result  she  was  prepared  even  with 
a  tragic  firmness  to  endure  any  thing  quietly  in 
marriage ;  and  she  had  had  acuteness  enough  to 
cherish  Grandcourt's  flickering  purpose  negative- 
ly, by  not  molesting  him  with  passionate  appeals 
and  with  scene-making.  In  her,  as  in  every  one 
else  who  wanted  any  thing  of  him,  his  incalcula- 
ble turns,  and  his  tendency  to  harden  unde»  be- 
seeching, had  created  a  reasonable  dread — a  slow 
discovery,  of  which  no  presentiment  had  been  giv- 
en in  the  bearing  of  a  youthful  lover  with  a  fine 
liae  of  face  and  the  softest  manners.  But  reti- 
cence had  necessarily  cost  something  to  this  im- 
passioned woman,  and  she  was  the  bitterer  for  it 
There  is  no  quailing — even  that  forced  on  the 
helpless  and  injured — which  has  not  an  ugly  ob- 
verse :  the  withheld  sting  was  gathering  venom. 
She  was  absolutely  dependent  on  Grandcourt ;  for 
though  he  had  been  always  liberal  in  expenses 
for  her,  he  had  kept  every  thing  voluntary  on  his 
part ;  and  with  the  goal  of  marriage  before  her 
she  would  ask  for  nothing  less.  He  had  said  that 
he  would  never  settle  any  thing  except  by  will ; 
and  when  she  was  thinking  of  alternatives  for  the 
future,  it  often  occurred  to  her  that,  even  if  she 
did  not  become  Grandcourt's  wife,  he  might  never 
have  a  son  who  would  have  a  legitimate  claim  on 
him,  and  the  end  might  be  that  her  son  would  be 
made  heir  to  the  best  part  of  his  estates.  No  son 
at  that  early  age  could  promise  to  have  more  of 
his  father's  physique.  But  her  becoming  Grand- 
court's  wife  was  so  far  from  being  an  extravagant 
notion  of  possibility  that  even  Lush  had  enter- 
tained it,  and  had  said  that  he  would  as  soon  bet 
on  it  as  on  any  other  likelihood  with  regard  to 
his  familiar  companion.  Lush,  indeed,  on  infer- 
ring that  Grandcourt  had  a  preconception  of  using 
his  residence  at  Diplow  in  order  to  win  Miss  Ar- 
rowpoint,  had  thought  it  well  to  fan  that  project, 
taking  it  as  a  tacit  renunciation  of  the  marriage 
with  Mrs.  Glasher,  which  had  long  been  a  mark 
for  the  hovering  and  wheeling  of  Grandcourt's 
caprice.  But  both  prospects  had  been  negatived 
by  Gwendolen's  appearance  on  the  scene ;  and  it 
/was  natural  enough  for  Mrs.  Glasher  to  enter 
with  eagerness  into  Lush's  plan  of  hindering  that 
new  danger  by  setting  up  a  barrier  in  the  mind 
of  the  girl  who  was  being  sought  as  a  bride.  She 
entered  into  it  with  an  eagerness  which  had  pas- 
sion in  it  as  well  as  purpose,  some  of  the  stored- 
up  venom  delivering  itself  in  that  way. 

After  that,  she  had  heard  from  Lush  of  Gwen- 
dolen's departure,  and  the  probability  that  all 
danger  from  her  was  got*  rid  of ;  but  there  had 
been  no  letter  to  tell  her  that  the  danger  had  re- 
turned and  had  become  a  certainty.  She  had 
since  then  written  to  Grandcourt,  as  she  did  ha- 
bitually, and  he  had  been  longer  than  usual  in 
answering.  She  was  inferring  that  he  might  in- 


116 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


tend  coming  to  Gadsmere  at  the  time  when  he 
was  actually  on  the  way ;  and  she  was  not  with- 
out hope — what  construction  of  another's  mind 
is  not  strong  wishing  equal  to  ? — that  a  certain 
sickening  from  that  frustrated  courtship  might 
dispose  him  to  slip  the  more  easily  into  the  old 
track  of  intention. 

Grandcourt  had  two  grave  purposes  in  coming 
to  Gadsmere :  to  convey  the  news  of  his  approach- 
ing marriage  in  person,  in  order  to  make  this  first 
difficulty  final ;  and  to  get  from  Lydia  his  moth- 
er's diamonds,  which  long  ago  he  had  confided  to 
her  and  wished  her  to  wear.  Her  person  suited 
diamonds,  and  made  them  look  as  if  they  were 
worth  some  of  the  money  given  for  them.  These 
particular  diamonds  were  not  mountains  of  light 
— they  were  mere  peas  and  haricots  for  the  ears, 
neck,  and  hair ;  but  they  were  worth  some  thou- 
sands, and  Grandcourt  necessarily  wished  to  have 
them  for  his  wife.  Formerly  when  he  had  asked 
Lydia  to  put  them  into  his  keeping  again,  simply 
on  the  ground  that  they  would  be  safer  and  ought 
to  be  deposited  at  the  bank,  she  had  quietly  but 
absolutely  refused,  declaring  that  they  were  quite 
safe ;  and  at  last  had  said,  "  If  you  ever  marry 
another  woman,  I  will  give  them  up  to  her :  are 
you  going  to  marry  another  woman  ?"  At  that 
tune  Grandcourt  had  no  motive  which  urged  him 
to  persist,  and  he  had  this  grace  in  him,  that  the 
disposition  to  exercise  power  either,  by  cowing  or 
disappointing  others  or  exciting  in  them  a  rage 
which  they  dare  not  express — a  disposition  which 
was  active  in  him  as  other  propensities  became 
languid — had  always  been  in  abeyance  before 
Lydia.  A  severe  interpreter  might  say  that  the 
mere  facts  of  their  relation  to  each  other,  the 
melancholy  position  of  this  woman  who  depended 
on  his  will,  made  a  standing  banquet  for  his  de- 
light in  dominating.  But  there  was  something 
else  than  this  in  his  forbearance  toward  her: 
there  was  the  surviving  though  metamorphosed 
effect  of  the  power  she  had  had  over  him ;  and 
it  was  this  effect,  the  fitful  dull  lapse  toward  so- 
licitations that  once  had  the  zest  now  missing 
from  life,  which  had  again  and  again  inclined 
him  to  espouse  a  familiar  past  rather  than  rouse 
himself  to  the  expectation  of  novelty.  But  now 
novelty  had  taken  hold  of  him  and  urged  him  to 
make  the  most  of  it. 

Mrs.  Glasher  was  seated  in  the  pleasant  room 
where  she  habitually  passed  her  mornings  with 
her  children  round  her.  It  had  a  square  pro- 
jecting window,  and  looked  on  broad  gravel  and 
grass,  sloping  toward  a  little  brook  that  entered 
the  pool.  The  top  of  a  low  black  cabinet,  the 
old  oak  table,  the  chairs  in  tawny  leather,  were 
littered  with  the  children's  toys,  books,  and  gar- 
den garments,  at  which  a  maternal  lady  in  pastel 
looked  down  from  the  walls  with  smiling  indul- 
gence. The  children  were  all  there.  The  three 
girls,  seated  round  their  mother  near  the  win- 
dow, were  miniature  portraits  of  her — dark-eyed, 
delicate-featured  brunettes,  with  a  rich  bloom  on 
their  cheeks,  their  little  nostrils  and  eyebrows 
singularly  finished,  as  if  they  were  tiny  women, 
the  eldest  being  basely  nine.  The  boy  was  seat- 
ed on  the  carpet  at  st>me  distance,  bending  his 
blonde  head  over  the  animals  from  a  Noah's  ark, 
admonishing  them  separately  in  a  voice  of  threat- 
ening command,  and  occasionally  licking  the  spot- 
ted ones  to  see  if  the  colors  would  hold.  Jose- 
phine, the  eldest,  was  having  her  French  lesson, 


and  the  others,  with  their  dolls  on  their  laps,  sat 
demurely  enough  for  images  of  the  Madonna. 
Mrs.  Glasher's  toilet  had  been  made  very  careful- 
ly— each  day  now  she  said  to  herself  that  Grand- 
court  might  come  in.  Her  head,  which,  spite  of 
emaciation,  had  an  ineffaceable  beauty  in  the  fine 
profile,  crisp  curves  of  hair,  and  clearly  marked 
eyebrows,  rose  impressively  above  her  bronze- 
colored  silk  and  velvet,  and  the  gold  necklace 
which  Grandcourt  had  first  clasped  round  her 
neck  years  ago.  Not  that  she  had  any  pleasure 
in  her  toilet ;  her  chief  thought  of  herself  seen 
in  the  glass  was,  "  How  changed !"  but  such  good 
hi  life  as  remained  to  her  she  would  keep.  If 
her  chief  wish  were  fulfilled,  she  could  imagine 
herself  getting  the  comeliness  of  a  matron  fit  for 
the  highest  rank.  The  little  faces  beside  her, 
almost  exact  reductions  of  her  own,  seemed  to 
tell  of  the  blooming  curves  which  had  once  been 
where  now  was  sunken  pallor.  But  the  children 
kissed  the  pale  cheeks,  and  never  found  them  de- 
ficient. That  love  was  now  the  one  end  of  her  life. 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Glasher  turned  away  her  head 
from  Josephine's  book,  and  listened.  "Hush, 
dear !  I  think  some  one  is  coming." 

Henleigh,  the  boy,  jumped  up  and  said, "  Mam- 
ma, is  it  the  miller  with  my  donkey  ?" 

He  got  no  answer,  and  going  up  to  his  mamma's 
knee,  repeated  his  question  in  an  insistent  tone. 
But  the  door  opened,  and  the  servant  announced 
Mr.  Grandcourt.  Mrs.  Glasher  rose  hi  some  agi- 
tation. Henleigh  frowned  at  him  in  disgust  at 
his  not  being  the  miller,  and  the  three  little  girls 
lifted  up  their  dark  eyes  to  him  timidly.  They 
had  none  of  them  any  particular  liking  for  this 
friend  of  mamma's — in  fact,  when  he  had  taken 
Mrs.  Glasher's  hand  and  then  turned  to  put  his 
other  hand  on  Henleigh's  head,  that  energetic 
scion  began  to  beat  the  friend's  arm  away  with 
his  fists.  The  little  girls  submitted  bashfully  to 
be  patted  under  the  chin  and  kissed,  but  on  the 
whole  it  seemed  better  to  send  them  into  the  gar- 
den, where  they  were  presently  dancing  and  chat- 
ting with  the  dogs  on  the  gravel. 

"  How  far  are  you  come  ?"  said  Mrs.  Glasher, 
as  Grandcourt  put  away  his  hat  and  overcoat. 

"  From  Diplow,"  he  answered,  slowly,  seating 
himself  opposite  her,  and  looking  at  her  with  au 
unnoting  gaze  which  she  noted. 

"  You  are  tired,  then." 

"  No,  I  rested  at  the  Junction — a  hideous  hole. 
These  railway  journeys  are  always  a  confounded 
bore.  But  I  had  coffee  and  smoked." 

Grandcourt  drew  out  his.  handkerchief,  rubbed 
his  face,  and  in  returning  the  handkerchief  to  his 
pocket  looked  at  his  crossed  knee  and  blameless 
boot,  as  if  any  stranger  were  opposite  to  him, 
instead  of  a  woman  quivering  with  a  suspense 
which  every  word  and  look  of  his  was  to  incline 
toward  hope  or  dread.  But  he  was  really  occu- 
pied with  their  interview  and  what  it  was  likely 
to  include.  Imagine  the  difference  in  rate  of 
emotion  between  this  woman  whom  the  years  had 
worn  to  a  more  conscious  dependence  and  sharp- 
er eagerness,  and  this  man  whom  they  were  dull- 
ing into  a  more  and  more  neutral  obstinacy. 

"  T  expected  to  see  you — it  was  so  long  since  I 
had  heard  from  you.  I  suppose  the  weeks  seem 
longer  at  Gadsmere  than  they  do  at  Diplow,"  said 
Mrs.  Glasher.  She  had  a  quick,  incisive  way  of 
speaking  that  seemed  to  go  with  her  features,  as 
the  tone  and  timbre  of  a  violin  go  with  its  form. 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


117 


"  Yes,"  drawled  Grandcourt  "  But  you  found 
the  money  paid  into  the  bank." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Mrs.  Glasher,  curtly,  tingling 
with  impatience.  Always  before — at  least  she 
fancied  so — Grandcourt  had  taken  more  notice 
of  her  and  the  children  than  he  did  to-day. 

"  Yes,"  he  resumed,  playing  with  his  whisker, 
and  at  first  not  looking  at  her,  "the  time  has 
gone  on  at  rather  a  rattling  pace  with  me ;  gen- 
erally it  is  slow  enough.  But  there  has  been  a 
good  deal  happening,  as  you  know" — here  he 
turned  his  eyes  upon  her. 

"  What  do  I  know  ?"  said  she,  sharply. 

He  left  a  pause  before  he  said,  without  change 
of  manner,  "That  I  was  thinking  of  marrying. 
You  saw  Miss  Harleth  ?" 

"  She  told  you  that  ?" 

The  pale  cheeks  looked  even  paler,  perhaps 
from  the  fierce  brightness  in  the  eyes  above  them. 

"No.  Lush  told  me,"  was  the  slow  answer. 
It  was  as  if  the  thumb-screw  and  the  iron  boot 
were  being  placed  by  creeping  hands  within  sight 
of  the  expectant  victim. 

"  Good  God !  say  at  once  that  you  are  going  to 
marry  her,"  she  burst  out,  passionately,  her  knee 
shaking  and  her  hands  tightly  clasped. 

"Of  course  this  kind  of  thing  must  happen 
some  time  or  other,  Lydia,"  said  he,  really,  now 
the  thumb-screw  was  on,  not  wishing  to  make  the 
pain  worse. 

"  You  didn't  always  see  the  necessity." 

"  Perhaps  not.     I  see  it  now." 

In  those  few  under-toned  words  of  Grandcourt's 
she  felt  as  absolute  a  resistance  as  if  her  thin 
fingers  had  been  pushing  at  a  fast-shut  iron  door. 
She  knew  her  helplessness,  and  shrank  from  test- 
ing it  by  any  appeal — shrank  from  crying  in  a 
dead  ear  and  clinging  to  dead  knees,  only  to  see 
the  immovable  face  and  feel  the  rigid  limbs. 
She  did  not  weep  nor  speak :  she  was  too  hard 
pressed  by  the  sudden  certainty  which  had  as 
much  of  chill  sickness  in  it  as  of  thought  and 
emotion.  The  defeated  clutch  of  struggling  hope 
gave  her  in  these  first  moments  a  horrible  sensa- 
tion. At  last  she  rose  with  a  spasmodic  effort, 
and,  unconscious  of  every  thing  but  her  wretch- 
edness, pressed  her  forehead  against  the  hard  cold 
glass  of  the  window.  The  children,  playing  on 
the  gravel,  took  this  as  a  sign  that  she  wanted 
them,  and  running  forward  stood  in  front  of  -her 
with  their  sweet  .faces  upturned  expectantly. 
This  roused  her:  she  shook  her  head  at  them, 
waved  them  off,  and  overcome  with  this  painful 
exertion,  sank  back  in  the  nearest  chair. 

Grandcourt  had  risen  too.  He  was  doubly  an- 
noyed— at  the  scene  itself,  and  at  the  sense  that 
no  imperiousness  of  his  could  save  him  from  it ; 
but  the  task  had  to  be  gone  through,  and  there 
was  the  administrative  necessity  of  arranging 
things  so  that  there  should  be  as  little  annoyance 
as  possible  in  future.  He  was  leaning  against 
the  corner  of  the  fire-place.  She  looked  up  at 
him  and  said,  bitterly, 

"All  this  is  of  no  consequence  to  you.  I  and 
the  children  are  importunate  creatures.  You 
wish  to  get  away  again  and  be  with  Miss  Harleth." 

"  Don't  make  the  affair  more  disagreeable  than 
it  need  be,  Lydia.  It  is  of  no  use  to  harp  on  things 
that  can't  be  altered.  Of  course  it's  deucedly 
disagreeable  to  me  to  see  you  making  yourself 
miserable.  I've  taken  this  journey  to  tell  you 
what  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to — you  and 


the  children  will  be  provided  for  as  usual — and 
there's  an  end  of  it." 

Silence.  She  dared  not  answer.  This  woman 
with  the  intense  eager  look  had  had  the  iron  of 
the  mother's  anguish  in  her  soul,  and  it  had  made 
her  sometimes  capable  of  a  repression  harder  than 
shrieking  and  struggle.  But  underneath  the  si- 
lence there  was  an  outlash  of  hatred  and  vindic- 
tiveness:  she  wished  that  the  marriage  might 
make  two  others  wretched,  besides  herself.  Pres- 
ently he  went  on : 

"  It  will  be  better  for  you.  You  may  go  on 
living  here.  But  I  think  of  by-and-by  settling  a 
good  sum  on  you  and  the  children,  and  you  can 
live  where  you  like.  There  will  be  nothing  for 
you  to  complain  of  then.  Whatever  happens,  you 
will  feel  secure.  Nothing  could  be  done  before- 
hand. Every  thing  has  gone  on  in  a  hurry." 

Grandcourt  ceased  his  slow  delivery  of  sen- 
tences. He  did  not  expect  her  to  thank  him,  but 
he  considered  that  she  might  reasonably  be  con- 
tented, if  it  were  possible  for  Lydia  to  be  content- 
ed. She  showed  no  change,  and  after  a  minute 


"  You  have  never  had  any  reason  to  fear  that 
I  should  be  illiberal  I  don't  care  a  curse  about 
the  money." 

"  If  you  did  care  about  it,  I  suppose  you  would 
not  give  it  us,"  said  Lydia.  The  sarcasm  was  ir- 
repressible. . 

"That's  a  devilishly  unfair  thing  to  say," 
Grandcourt  replied,  in  a  lower  tone ;  "  and  I  ad- 
vise you  not  to  say  that  sort  of  thing  again." 

"  Should  you  punish  me  by  leaving  the  children 
in  beggary  ?"  In  spite  of  herself,  the  one  outlet 
of  venom  had  brought  the  other. 

"  There  is  no  question  about  leaving  the  chil- 
dren in  beggary,"  said  Grandcourt,  still  in  his  low- 
voice.  "  I  advise  you  not  to  say  things  that  you 
will  repent  of." 

"  I  am  used  to  repenting,"  said  she,  bitterly. 
"  Perhaps  you  will  repent.  You  have  already  re- 
pented of  loving  me." 

"  All  this  will  only  make  it  uncommonly  diffi- 
cult for  us  to  meet  again.  What  friend  have  you 
besides  me?" 

"  Quite  true." 

The  words  came  like  a  low  moan.  At  the  same 
moment  there  flashed  through  her  the  wish  that 
after  promising  himself  a  better  happiness  than 
that  he  had  had  with  her,  he  might  feel  a  misery 
and  loneliness  which  would  drive  him  back  to 
her  to  find  some  memory  of  a  time  when  he  was 
young,  glad,  and  hopeful.  But  no !  he  would  go 
scathless ;  it  was  she  who  had  to  suffer. 

With  this  the  scorching  words  were  ended. 
Grandcourt  had  meant  to  stay  till  evening ;  he 
wished  to  curtail  his  visit,  but  there  was  no  suit- 
able train  earlier  than  the  one  he  had  arranged  to 
go  by,  and  he  had  still  to  speak  to  Lydia  on  the 
second  object  of  his  visit,  which,  like  a  second 
surgical  operation,  seemed  to  require  an  interval. 
The  hours  had  to  go  by ;  there  was  eating  to  be 
done ;  the  children  came  in  again — all  this  mech- 
anism of  life  had  to  be  gone  through  with  the 
dreary  sense  of  restraint  which  is  often  felt  in 
domestic  quarrels  of  a  commoner  kind.  To  Lydia 
it  was  some  slight  relief  for  her  stifled  fury  to 
have  the  children  present :  she  felt  a  savage  glo- 
ry in  their  loveliness,  as  if  it  would  taunt  Grand- 
court  with  his  indifference  to  her  and  them— a 
secret  darting  of  venom  which  was  strongly  im- 


118 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


aginative.  He  acquitted  himself  with  all  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  man  whose  grace  of  bearing  has 
long  been  moulded  on  an  experience  of  boredom 
— nursed  the  little  Antonia,  who  sat  with  her 
hands  crossed  and  eyes  upturned  to  his  bald 
head,  which  struck  her  as  worthy  of  observation 
— and  propitiated  Henleigh  by  promising  him  a 
beautiful  saddle  and  bridle.  It  was  only  the  two 
eldest  girls  who  had  known  him  as  a  continual 
presence;  and  the  intervening  years  had  over- 
laid their  infantine  memories  with  a  bashfulness 
which  Grandcourt's  bearing  was  not  likely  to 
dissipate.  He  and  Lydia  occasionally,  in,,  the 
presence  of  the  servants,  made  a  conventional  re- 
mark ;  otherwise  they  never  spoke ;  and  the  stag- 
nant thought  in  Grandcourt's  mind  all  the  while 
was  of  his  own  infatuation  in  having  given  her 
those  diamonds,  which  obliged  him  to  incur  the 
nuisance  of  speaking  about  them.  He  had  an 
ingrained  care  for  what  he  held  to  belong  to  his 
caste,  and  about  property  he  liked  to  be  lordly ; 
also  he  had  a  consciousness  of  indignity  to  him- 
self in  having  to  ask  for  any  thing  in  the  world. 
But  however  he  might  assert  his  independence  of 
Mrs.  Glasher's  past,  he  had  made  a  past  for  him- 
self which  was  a  stronger  yoke  than  any  he 
could  impose.  He  must  ask  for  the  diamonds 
which  he  had  promised  to  Gwendolen. 

At  last  they  were  alone  again,  with  the  can- 
dles above  them,  face  to  face  with,  each  other. 
Grandcourt  looked  at  his  watch,  and  then  said,  in 
an  apparently  indifferent  drawl,  "  There  is  one 
thing  I  had  to  mention,  Lydia.  My  diamonds — 
you  have  them." 

"  Yes,  I  have  them,"  she  answered,  promptly, 
rising,  and  standing  with  her  arms  thrust  down 
and  her  fingers  threaded,  while  Grandcourt  sat 
still.  She  had  expected  the  topic,  and  made  her 
resolve  about  it.  But  she  meant  to  carry  out 
her  resolve,  if  possible,  without  exasperating  him. 
During  the  hours  of  silence  she  had  longed  to  re- 
call the  words  which  had  only  widened  the  breach 
between  them. 

"  They  are  in  this  house,  I  suppose  ?" 

"  No ;  not  in  this  house." 

"  I  thought  you  said  you  kept  them  by  you." 

"  When  I  said  so  it  was  true.  They  are  in  the 
bank  at  Dudley." 

"  Get  them  away,  will  you  ?  I  must  make  an 
arrangement  for  your  delivering  them  to  some 
one." 

"  Make  no  arrangement.  They  shall  be  deliv- 
ered to  the  person  you  intended  them  for.  /will 
make  the  arrangement." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"What  I  say.  I  have  always  told  you  that  I 
would  give  them  up  to  your  wife.  I  shall  keep 
my  word.  She  is  not  your  wife  yet." 

"  This  is  foolery,"  said  Grandcourt,  with  under- 
toned  disgust.  It  was  too  irritating  that  his  in- 
dulgence of  Lydia  had  given  her  a  sort  of  mas- 
tery over  him  in  spite  of  her  dependent  condition. 

She  did  not  speak.  He  also  rose  now,  but 
stood  leaning  against  the  mantel-piece  with  his 
side  face  toward  her. 

"  The  diamonds  must  be  delivered  to  me  before 
my  marriage,"  he  began  again. 

"  What  is  your  wedding-day  ?" 

"  The  tenth.     There  is  no  time  to  be  lost." 

"  And  where  do  you  go  after  the  marriage  ?" 

He  did  not  reply  except  by  looking  more  sul- 
len. Presently  he  said,  "  You  must  appoint  a 


day  before  then,  to  get  them  from  the  bank  and 
meet  me — or  somebody  else  I  will  commission : 
it's  a  great  nuisance.  Mention  a  day." 

"  No ;  I  shall  not  do  that.  They  shall  be  de- 
livered to  her  safely.  I  shall  keep  my  word." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say,"  said  Grandcourt,  just 
audibly,  turning  to  face  her,  "  that  you  will  not 
do  as  I  tell  you  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  mean  that,"  was  the  answer  that  leap- 
ed out,  while  her  eyes  flashed  close  to  him.  The 
poor  creature  was  immediately  conscious  that  if 
her  words  had  any  effect  on  her  own  lot,  the  ef- 
fect must  be  mischievous,  and  might  nullify  all 
the  remaining  advantage  of  her  long  patience. 
But  the  word  had  been  spoken. 

He  was  in  a  position  the  most  irritating  to 
him.  He  could  not  shake  her  nor  touch  her  hos- 
tilely ;  and  if  he  could,  the  process  would  not 
bring  the  diamonds.  He  shrank  from  the  only 
sort  of  threat  that  would  frighten  her— if  she 
believed  it.  And,  in  general,  there  was  nothing 
he  hated  more  than  to  be  forced  into  any  thing 
like  violence  even  in  words :  his  will  must  impose 
itself  without  trouble.  After  looking  at  her  for 
a  moment  he  turned  his  side  face  toward  her 
again,  leaning  as  before,  and  said, 

"  Infernal  idiots  that  women  are '." 

"  Why  will  you  not  tell  me  where  you  are  going 
after  the  marriage  ?  I  could  be  at  the  wedding 
if  I  liked,  and  learn  in  that  way,"  said  Lydia,  not 
shrinking  from  the  one  suicidal  form  of  threat 
within  her  power. 

"  Of  course,  if  you  like,  you  can  play  the  mad- 
woman," said  Grandcourt,  with  sotto  voce  scorn. 
"  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  you  will  wait  to 
think  what  good  will  come  of  it — or  what  you 
owe  to  me." 

He  was  in  a  state  of  disgust  and  imbitterment 
quite  new  in  the  history  of  their  relation  to  each 
other.  It  was  undeniable  that  this  woman  whose 
life  he  had  allowed  to  send  such  deep  suckers 
into  his  had  a  terrible  power  of  annoyance  in  her ; 
and  the  rash  hurry  of  his  proceedings  had  left  her 
opportunities  open.  His  pride  saw  very  ugly  pos- 
sibilities threatening  it,  and  he  stood  for  several 
minutes  in  silence  reviewing  the  situation — con- 
sidering how  he  could  act  upon  her.  Unlike  him- 
self, she  was  of  a  direct  nature,  with  certain  sim- 
ple strongly  colored  tendencies,  and  there  was 
one  often-experienced  effect  which  he  thought  he 
could  count  upon  now.  As  Sir  Hugo  had  said  of 
him,  Grandcourt  knew  how  to  play  his  cards  upon 
occasion. 

He  did  not  speak  again,  but  looked  at  his 
watch,  rang  the  bell,  and  ordered  the  vehicle  to 
be  brought  round  immediately.  Then  he  removed 
farther  from  her,  walked  as  if  in  expectation  of  a 
summons,  and  remained  silent  without  turning 
his  eyes  upon  her. 

She  was  suffering  the  horrible  conflict  of  self-re- 
proach and  tenacity.  She  saw  beforehand  Grand- 
court  leaving  her  without  even  looking  at  her 
again — herself  left  behind  in  lonely  uncertainty 
— hearing  nothing  from  him — not  knowing  wheth- 
er she  had  done  her  children  harm — feeling  that 
she  had  perhaps  made  him  hate  her:  all  the 
wretchedness  of  a  creature  who  had  defeated  her 
own  motives.  And  yet  she  could  not  bear  to  give 
up  a  purpose  which  was  a  sweet  morsel  to  her 
vindictiveness.  If  she  had  not  been  a  mother, 
she  would  willingly  have  sacrificed  herself  to  her 
revenge — to  what  she  felt  to  be  the  justice  of 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


119 


hindering  another  from  getting  happiness  by 
willingly  giving  her  over  to  misery.  The  two 
dominant  passions  were  at  struggle.  She  must 
satisfy  them  both. 

"  Don't  let  us  part  in  anger,  Henleigh,"  she  be- 

rn,  without  changing  her  place  or  attitude :  "  it 
a  very  little  thing  I  ask.  If  I  were  refusing  to 
give  any  thing  up  that  you  call  yours,  it  would 
be  different :  that  would  be  a  reason  for  treating 
me  as  if  you  hated  me.  But  I  ask  such  a  little 
thing.  If  you  will  tell  me  where  you  are  going 
on  the  wedding-day,  I  will  take  care  that  the  dia- 
monds shall  be  delivered  to  her  without  scandal. 
Without  scandal,"  she  repeated,  entreatingly. 

"  Such  preposterous  whims  make  a  woman 
odious,"  said  Grandcourt,  not  giving  way  in  look 
or  movement.  "  What  is  the  use  of  talking  to 
mad  people  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  am  foolish :  loneliness  has  made  me 
foolish:  indulge  me."  Sobs  rose  as  she  spoke. 
"  If  you  will  indulge  me  in  this  one  folly,  I  will 
be  very  meek — I  will  never  trouble  you."  She 
burst  into  hysterical  crying,  and  said  again,  almost 
with  a  scream,  "  I  will  be  very  meek  after  that." 
.There  was  a  strange  mixture  of  acting  and 
reality  in  this  passion.  She  kept  hold  of  her 
purpose  as  a  child  might  tighten  its  hand  over  a 
small  stolen  thing,  crying  and  denying  all  the 
while.  Even  Grandcourt  was  wrought  upon  by 
surprise :  this  capricious  wish,  this  childish  vio- 
lence, was  as  unlike  Lydia's  bearing  as  it  was  in- 
congruous with  her  person.  Both  had  always  had 
a  stamp  of  dignity  on  them.  Yet  she  seemed 
more  manageable  in  this  state  than  in  her  former 
attitude  of  defiance.  He  came  close  up  to  her 
again,  and  said,  in  his  low  imperious  tone,  "  Be 
quiet,  and  hear  what  I  tell  you.  I  will  never  for- 
give you  if  you  present  yourself  again  and  make 
a  scene." 

She  pressed  her  handkerchief  against  her  face, 
and  when  she  could  speak  firmly,  said,  in  the 
muffled  voice  that  follows  sobbing,  "  I  will  not — 
if  you  will  let  me  have  my  way — I  promise  you 
not  to  thrust  myself  forward  again.  I  have  never 
broken  my  word  to  you:  how  many  have  you 
broken  to  me  ?  When  you  gave  me  the  diamonds 
to  wear,  you  were  not  thinking  of  having  another 
wife.  And  I  now  give  them  up — I  don't  reproach 
you — I  only  ask  you  to  let  me  give  them  up  in  my 
own  way.  Have  I  not  borne  it  well  ?  Every  thing 
is  to  be  taken  away  from  me,  and  when  I  ask  for 
a  straw,  a  chip,  you  deny  it  me."  She  had  spoken 
rapidly,  but  after  a  little  pause  she  said,  more 
slowly,  her  voice  freed  from  its  muffled  tone,  "  I 
will  not  bear  to  have  it  denied  me." 

Grandcourt  had  a  baffling  sense  that  he  had  to 
deal  with  something  like  madness ;  he  could  only 
govern  by  giving  way.  The  servant  came  to  say 
the  fly  was  ready.  *  When  the  door  was  shut 
again,  Grandcourt  said,  sullenly,  "  We  are  going 
to  Ryelands,  then." 

"They  shall  be  delivered  to  her  there,"  said 
Lydia,  with  decision. 

"  Very  well,  I  am  going."  He  felt  no  inclina- 
tion even  to  take  her  hand :  she  had  annoyed  him 
too  sorely.  But  now  that  she  had  gained  her 
point,  she  was  prepared  to  humble  herself  that 
she  might  propitiate  him. 

"  Forgive  me ;  I  will  never  vex  you  again,"  she 
said,  with  beseeching  looks.  Her  inward  voice 
said,  distinctly,  "It  is  only  I  who  have  to  for- 
give." Yet  she  was  obliged  to  ask  forgiveness. 


1  You  had  better  keep  that  promise.  You  have 
made  me  feel  uncommonly  ill  with  your  folly," 
said  Grandcourt,  apparently  choosing  this  state- 
ment as  the  strongest  possible  use  of  language. 

"  Poor  thing !"  said  Lydia,  with  a  faint  smile. 
Was  he  aware  of  the  minor  fact  that  he  had  made 
her  feel  ill  this  morning  ? 

But  with  the  quick  transition  natural  to  her, 
she  was  now  ready  to  coax  him  if  he  would  let 
her,  that  they  might  part  in  some  degree  recon- 
ciled. She  ventured  to  lay  her  hand  on  his  shoul- 
der, and  he  did  not  move  away  from  her :  she  had 
so  far  succeeded  in  alarming  him  that  he  was  not 
sorry  for  these  proofs  of  returned  subjection. 

"Light  a  cigar,"  she  said,  soothingly,  taking 
the  case  from  his  breast  pocket  and  opening  it. 

Amidst  such  caressing  signs  of  mutual  fear  they 
parted.  The  effect  that  clung  and  gnawed  within 
Grandcourt  was  a  sense  of  imperfect  mastery. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

"A  wild  dedication  of  yourselves 
To  unpath'd  waters,  undream'd  shores." 

— SHAKSPEABE. 

ON  the  day  when  Gwendolen  Harleth  was  mar- 
ried  and  became  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  the  morning 
was  clear  and  bright,  and  while  the  sun  was  low 
a  slight  frost  crisped  the  leaves.  The  bridal  par- 
ty was  worth  seeing,  and  half  Pennicote  turned 
out  to  see  it,  lining  the  pathway  up  to  the  church. 
An  old  friend  of  the  Rector's  performed  the  mar- 
riage ceremony,  the  Rector  himself  acting  as  fa- 
ther, to  the  great  advantage  of  the  procession. 
Only  two  faces,  it  was  remarked,  showed  signs 
of  sadness — Mrs.  Davilow's  and  Anna's.  The 
mother's  delicate  eyelids  were  pink,  as  if  she 
had  been  crying  half  the  night ;  and  no  one  was 
surprised  that,  splendid  as  the  match  was,  she 
should  feel  the  parting  from  a  daughter  who  was 
the  flower  of  her  children  and  of  her  own  life. 
It  was  less  understood  why  Anna  should  be  trou- 
bled, when  she  was  being  so  well  set  off  by  the 
bride-maid's  dress.  Every  one  else  seemed  to 
reflect  the  brilliancy  of  the  occasion — the  bride 
most  of  all.  Of  her  it  was  agreed  that  as  to 
figure  and  carriage  she  was  worthy  to  be  a  "  lady 
o'  title ;"  as  to  face,  perhaps  it  might  be  thought 
that  a  title  required  something  more  rosy ;  but 
the  bridegroom  himself  not  being  fresh-colored 
— being,  indeed,  as  the  miller's  wife  observed, 
very  much  of  her  own  husband's  complexion — 
the  match  was  the  more  complete.  Anyhow,  he 
must  be  very  fond  of  her ;  and  it  was  to  be  hoped 
that  he  would  never  cast  it  up  to  her  that  she 
had  been  going  out  to  service  as  a  governess, 
and  her  mother  to  live  at  Sawyer's  Cottage — 
vicissitudes  which  had  been  much  spoken  of  in 
the  village.  The  miller's  daughter  of  fourteen 
could  not  believe  that  high  gentry  behaved  badly 
to  their  wives,  but  her  mother  instructed  her: 
"  Oh,  child,  men's  men :  gentle  or  simple,  they're 
much  of  a  muchness.  I've  heard  my  mother  say 
Squire  Pelton  used  to  take  his  dogs  and  a  long 
whip  into  his  wife's  room,  and  flog  'em  there  to 
frighten  her;  and  my  mother  was  lady's-maid 
there  at  the  very  tune." 

"  That's  unlucky  talk  for  a  wedding,  Mrs.  Gir- 
dle," said  the  tailor.  "A  quarrel  may  end  wi' 
the  whip,  but  it  begins  wi'  the  tongue,  and  it's 
the  women  have  got  the  most  o'  that." 


120 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"  The  Lord  gave  it  'em  to  use,  I  suppose,"  said 
Mrs.  Girdle ;  "He  never  meant  you  to  have  it  all 
your  own  way." 

"  By  what  I  can  make  out  from  the  gentleman 
as  attends  to  the  grooming  at  Offendene,"  said 
the  tailor,  "  this  Mr.  Grandcourt  has  wonderful 
little  tongue.  Every  thing  must  be  done  dummy- 
like  without  his  ordering." 

"  Then  he's  the  more  whip,  I  doubt,"  said  Mrs. 
Girdle.  "  She's  got  tongue  enough,  I  warrant  her. 
See,  there  they  come  out  together !" 

"  What  wonderful  long  corners  she's  got  to  her 
eyes !"  said  the  tailor.  "  She  makes  you  feel  com- 
ical when  she  looks  at  you." 

Gwendolen,  in  fact,  never  showed  more  elastic- 
ity hi  her  bearing,  more  lustre  in  her  long  brown 
glance :  she  had  the  brilliancy  of  strong  excite- 
ment, which  will  sometimes  come  even  from  pain. 
It  was  not  pain,  however,  that  she  was  feeling : 
she  had  wrought  herself  up  to  much  the  same 
condition  as  that  in  which  she  stood  at  the  gam- 
bling table  when  Deronda  was  looking  at  her, 
and  she  began  to  lose.  There  was  enjoyment  in 
it :  whatever  uneasiness  a  growing  conscience  had 
created  was  disregarded  as  an  ailment  might 
have  been  amidst  the  gratification  of  that  ambi- 
tious vanity  and  desire  for  luxury  within  her 
which  it  would  take  a  great  deal  of  slow  poison- 
ing to  kill.  This  morning  she  could  not  have  said 
truly  that  she  repented  her  acceptance  of  Grand- 
court,  or  that  any  fears  in  hazy  perspective  could 
hinder  the  glowing  effects  of  the  immediate  scene 
in  which  she  was  the  central  object.  That  she 
was  doing  something  wrong — that  a  punishment 
might  be  hanging  over  her — that  the  woman  to 
whom  she  had  given  a  promise  and  broken  it  was 
thinking  of  her  in  bitterness  and  misery  with  a 
just  reproach — that  Deronda,  with  his  way  of  look- 
ing into  things,  very  likely  despised  her  for  marry- 
ing Grandcourt,  as  he  had  despised  her  for  gam- 
bling— above  all,  that  the  cord  which  united  her 
with  this  lover,  and  which  she  had  hitherto  held 
by  the  hand,  was  now  being  flung  over  her  neck : 
all  this  yeasty  mingling  of  dimly  understood  facts 
with  vague  but  deep  impressions,  and  with  images 
half  real,  half  fantastic,  had  been  disturbing  her 
during  the  weeks  of  her  engagement.  Was  that 
agitating  experience  nullified  this  morning  ?  No ; 
it  was  surmounted  and  thrust  down  with  a  sort 
of  exulting  defiance  as  she  felt  herself  standing 
at  the  game  of  life  with  many  eyes  upon  her, 
daring  every  thing  to  win  much — or  if  to  lose, 
still  with  eclat  and  a  sense  of  importance.  But 
this  morning  a  losing  destiny  for  herself  did  not 
press  upon  her  as  a  fear :  she  thought  that  she 
was  entering  on  a  fuller  power  of  managing  cir- 
cumstance— with  all  the  official  strength  of  mar- 
riage, which  some  women  made  so  poor  a  use  of. 
That  intoxication  of  youthful  egoism,  out  of  which 
she  had  been  shaken  by  trouble,  humiliation,  and 
a  new  sense  of  culpability,  had  returned  upon  her 
under  the  newly  fed  strength  of  the  old  fumes. 
She  did  not  in  the  least  present  the  ideal  of  the 
tearful,  tremulous  bride.  Poor  Gwendolen,  whom 
some  had  judged  much  too  forward  and  instruct- 
ed in  the  world's  ways !— with  her  erect  head  and 
elastic  footstep  she  was  walking  amidst  illusions ; 
and  yet,  too,  there  was  an  under-consciousness  in 
her  that  she  was  a  little  intoxicated. 

"  Thank  God  you  bear  it  so  well,  my  darling !" 
said  Mrs.  Davilow,  when  she  had  helped  Gwendo- 
len to  doff  her  bridal  white  and  put  on  her  trav- 


All  the  trembling  had  been  done  by 
the  poor  mother,  and  her  agitation  urged  Gwen- 
dolen doubly  to  take  the  morning  as  if  it  were  a 
triumph. 

"  Why,  you  might  have  said  that  if  I  had  been 
going  to  Mrs.  Mompert's,  you  dear,  sad,  incorrigi- 
ble mamma !"  said  Gwendolen,  just  putting  her 
hands  to  her  mother's  cheeks  with  laughing  ten- 
derness— then  retreating  a  little  and  spreading 
out  her  arms  as  if  to  exhibit  herself.  "  Here  am 
I — Mrs.  Grandcourt !  what  else  would  you  have 
me,  but  what  I  am  sure  to  be  ?  You  know  you 
were  ready  to  die  with  vexation  when  you  thought 
that  I  would  not  be  Mrs.  Grandcourt." 

"  Hush,  hush,  my  child,  for  Heaven's  sake !"  said 
Mrs.  Davilow,  almost  in  a  whisper.  "  How  can  I 
help  feeling  it  when  I  am  parting  from  you  ?  But 
I  can  bear  any  thing  gladly  if  you  are  happy." 

"  Not  gladly,  mamma,  no !"  said  Gwendolen, 
shaking  her  head,  with  a  bright  smile.  "  Will- 
ingly you  would  bear  it,  but  always  sorrowfully. 
Sorrowing  is  your  sauce ;  you  can  take  nothing 
without  it."  Then,  clasping  her  mother's  shoul- 
ders and  raining  kisses  first  on  one  cheek  and 
then  on  the  other  between  her  words,  she  said, 
gayly,  "  And  you  shall  sorrow  over  my  having  ev- 
ery thing  at  my  beck — and  enjoying  every  thing 
gloriously — splendid  houses — and  horses — and 
diamonds,  I  shall  have  diamonds — and  going  to 
court — and  being  Lady  Certainly — and  Lady  Per- 
haps— and  grand  here — and  tantivy  there — and 
always  loving  you  better  than  any  body  else  in  the 
world." 

"  My  sweet  child ! — But  I  shall  not  be  jealous 
if  you  love  your  husband  better;  and  he  will 
expect  to  be  first." 

Gwendolen  thrust  out  her  lips  and  chin  with  a 
pretty  grimace,  saying, "  Rather  a  ridiculous  ex- 
pectation. However,  I  don't  mean  to  treat  him 
ill,  unless  he  deserves  it." 

Then  the  two  fell  into  a  clinging  embrace,  and 
Gwendolen  could  not  hinder  a  rising  sob  when  she 
said,  "  I  wish  you  were  going  with  me,  mamma." 

But  the  slight  dew  on  her  long  eyelashes  only 
made  her  the  more  charming  when  she  gave  her 
hand  to  Grandcourt  to  be  led  to  the  carriage. 

The  Rector  looked  in  on  her  to  give  a  final 
"Good-by;  God  bless  you;  we  shall  see  you 
again  before  long,"  and  then  returned  to  Mrs. 
Davilow,  saying,  half  cheerfully,  half  solemnly, 

"  Let  us  be  thankful,  Fanny.  She  is  in  a  po- 
sition well  suited  to  her,  and  beyond  what  I 
should  have  dared  to  hope  for.  And  few  women 
can  have  been  chosen  more  entirely  for  their 
own  sake.  You  should  feel  yourself  a  happy 
mother." 

There  was  a  railway  journey  of  some  fifty 
miles  before  the  new  husband  and  wife  reached 
the  station  near  Ryelands.  The  sky  had  veiled 
itself  since  the  morning,  and  it  was  hardly  more 
than  twilight  when  they  entered  the  park  gates, 
but  still  Gwendolen,  looking  out  of  the  carriage 
window  as  they  drove  rapidly  along,  could  sec 
the  grand  outlines  and  the  nearer  beauties  of  the 
scene — the  long  winding  drive  bordered  with  ev- 
ergreens backed  by  huge  gray  stems ;  then  the 
opening  of  wide  grassy  spaces  and  undulations 
studded  with  dark  clumps;  till  at  last  came  a 
wide  level  where  the  white  house  could  be  seen, 
with  a  hanging  wood  for  a  background,  and  the 
rising  and  sinking  balustrade  of  a  terrace  in  front. 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


121 


Gwendolen  had  been  at  her  liveliest  during  the 
journey,  chatting  incessantly,  ignoring  any  change 
in  their  mutual  position  since  yesterday;  and 
Grandcourthad  been  rather  ecstatically  quiescent, 
while  she  turned  his  gentle  seizure  of  her  hand 
into  a  grasp  of  his  hand  by  both  hers,  with  an 
increased  vivacity,  as  of  a  kitten  that  will  not  sit 
quiet  to  be  petted.  She  was  really  getting  some- 
what febrile  in  her  excitement ;  and  now  in  this 
drive  through  the  park  her  usual  susceptibility  to 
changes  of  light  and  scenery  helped  to  make  her 
heart  palpitate  newly.  Was  it  at  the  novelty 
simply,  or  the  almost  incredible  fulfillment  about 
to  be  given  to  her  girlish  dreams  of  being  "  some- 
body"— walking  through  her  own  furlong  of  cor- 
ridors and  under  her  own  ceilings  of  an  out-of- 
sight  loftiness,  where  her  own  painted  .Spring 
was  shedding  painted  flowers,  and  her  own  fore- 
shortened Zephyrs  were  blowing  their  trumpets 
over  her;  while  her  own  servants,  lackeys  in 
clothing,  but  men  hi  bulk  and  shape,  were  as 
naught  in  her  presence,  and  revered  the  proprie- 
ty of  her  insolence  to  them : — being  in  short  the 
heroine  of  an  admired  play  without  the  pains  of 
art  ?  Was  it  alone  the  closeness  of  this  fulfill- 
ment which  made  her  heart  flutter?  or  was  it 
some  dim  forecast,  the  insistent  penetration  of 
suppressed  experience,  mixing  the  expectation  of 
a  triumph  with  the  dread  of  a  crisis  ?  Hers  was 
one  of  the  natures  in  which  exultation  inevitably 
carries  an  infusion  of  dread  ready  to  curdle  and 
declare  itself. 

She  fell  silent  in  spite  of  herself  as  they  ap- 
proached the  gates,  and  when  her  husband  said, 
"  Here  we  are  at  home !"  and  for  the  first  time 
kissed  her  on  the  lips,  she  hardly  knew  of  it: 
it  was  no  more  than  the  passive  acceptance  of  a 
greeting  in. the  midst  of  an  absorbing  show.  Was 
not  all  her  hurrying  life  of  the  last  three  months 
a  show,  in  which  her  consciousness  was  a  won- 
dering spectator  ?  After  the  half -willful  excite- 
ment of  the  day,  a  numbness  had  come  over  her 
personality. 

But  there  was  a  brilliant  light  in  the  hall- 
warmth,  matting,  carpets,  full-length  portraits, 
Olympian  statues,  assiduous  servants.  Not  many 
servants,  however :  only  a  few  from  Diplow  in  ad- 
dition to  those  constantly  in  charge  of  the  house ; 
and  Gwendolen's  new  maid,  who  had  come  with 
her,  was  taken  under  guidance  by  the  housekeep- 
er. Gwendolen  felt  herself  being  led  by  Grand- 
court  along  a  subtly  scented  corridor,  then  into 
an  anteroom,  where  she  saw  an  open  doorway 
sending  out  a  rich  glow  of  light  and  color. 

"  These  are  our  dens,"  said  Grandcourt.  "  You 
will  like  to  be  quiet  here  till  dinner.  We  shall 
dine  early." 

He  pressed  her  hand  to  his  lips  and  moved  away, 
more  in  love  than  he  had  ever  expected  to  be. 

Gwendolen,  yielding  up  her  hat  and  mantle, 
threw  herself  into  a  chair  by  the  glowing  hearth, 
and  saw  herself  repeated  in  glass  panels  with  all 
her  faint  green  satin  surroundings.  The  house- 
keeper had  passed  into  this  boudoir  from  the 
adjoining  dressing-room,  and  seemed  disposed  to 
linger,  Gwendolen  thought,  in  order  to  look  at  the 
new  mistress  of  Ryelands,  who,  however,  being 
impatient  for  solitude,  said  to  her,  "  Will  you  tell 
Hudson  when  she  has  put  out  my  dress  to  leave 
every  thing  ?  I  shall  not  want  her  again,  unless 
I  ring." 

The  housekeeper,  coming  forward,  said,  "  Here 


is  a  packet,  madam,  which  I  was  ordered  to  give 
into  nobody's  hands  but  yours,  when  you  were 
alone.  The  person  who  brought  it  said  it  was  a 
present  particularly  ordered  by  Mr.  Grandcourt ; 
but  he  was  not  to  know  of  its  arrival  till  he  saw 
you  wear  it.  Excuse  me,  madam :  I  felt  it  right 
to  obey  orders." 

Gwendolen  took  the  packet,  and  let  it  lie  on 
her  lap  till  she  heard  the  doors  close.  It  came 
into  her  mind  that  the  packet  might  contain  the 
diamonds  which  Grandcourt  had  spoken  of  as 
being  deposited  somewhere,  and  to  be  given  to 
her  on  her  marriage.  In  this  moment  of  con- 
fused feeling  and  creeping  luxurious  languor  she 
was  glad  of  this  diversion — glad  of  such  an  event 
as  having  her  own- diamonds  to  try  on. 

Within  all  the  sealed  paper  coverings  was  a 
box,  but  within  the  box  there  was  a  jewel-case ; 
and  now  she  felt  no  doubt  that  she  had  the.  dia- 
monds. But  on  opening  the  case,  in  the  same 
instant  that  she  saw  their  gleam  she  saw  a  letter 
lying  above  them.  She  knew  the  handwriting  of 
the  address.  It  was  as  if  an  adder  had  lain  on 
them.  Her  heart  gave  a  leap  which  seemed  to 
have  spent  all  her  strength ;  and  as  she  opened 
the  bit  of  thin  paper,  it  shook  with  the  trembling 
of  her  hands.  But  it  was  legible  as  print,  and 
thrust  its  words  upon  her. 

'  These  diamonds,  which  were  once  given  with 
ardent  love  to  Lydia  Glasher,  she  passes  on  to 
you.  You  have  broken  your  word  to  her,  that 
you  might  possess  what  was  hers.  Perhaps  you 
think  of  being  happy,  as  she  once  was,  and  of 
having  beautiful  children  such  as  hers,  who  will 
thrust  hers  aside.  God  is  too  just  for  that.  The 
man  you  have  married  has  a  withered  heart.  His 
best  young  love  was  mine ;  you  could  not  take 
that  from  me  when  you  took  the  rest.  It  is  dead ; 
but  I  am  the  grave  in  which  your  chance  of  hap- 
piness is  buried  as  well  as  mine.  You  had  your 
warning.  You  have  chosen  to  injure  me  and  my 
children.  He  had  meant  to  marry  me.  He  would 
have  married  me  at  last,  if  you  had  not  broken 
your  word.  You  will  have  your  punishment  I 
desire  it  with  all  my  seul. 


me  and  ruin  us  more — me  and  my  children? 
Shall  you  like  to  stand  before  your  husband  with 
these  diamonds  on  you,  and  these  words  of  mine 
in  his  thoughts  and  yours  ?  Will  he  think  you 
have  any  right  to  complain  when  he  has  made 
you  miserable  ?  You  took  him  with  your  eyes 
open.  The  willing  wrong  you  have  done  me  will 
be  your  curse." 

It  seemed  at  first  as  if  Gwendolen's  eyes  were 
spell-bound  in  reading  the  horrible  words  of  the 
letter  over  and  over  again  as  a  doom  of  penance ; 
but  suddenly  a  new  spasm  of  terror  made  her  lean 
forward  and  stretch  out  the  paper  toward  the  fire, 
lest  accusation  and  proof  at  once  should  meet  all 
eyes.  It  flew  like  a  feather  from  her  trembling 
fingers  and  was  caught  up  in  the  great  draught  of 
flame.  In  her  movement  the  casket  fell  on  the 
floor  and  the  diamonds  rolled  out.  She  took  no 
notice,  but  fell  back  in  her  chair  again  helpless. 
She  could  not  see  the  reflections  of  herself  then : 
they  were  like  so  many  women  petrified  white ; 
but  coming  near  herself,  you  might  have  seen  the 
tremor  in  her  lips  and  hands.  She  sat  so  for  a 
long  while,  knowing  little  more  than  that  she  was 


122 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


feeling  ill,  and  that  those  written  words  kept  re- 
peating themselves  in  her. 

Truly  here  were  poisoned  gems,  and  the  poison 
had  entered  into  this  poor  young  creature. 

After  that  long  while,  there  was  a  tap  at  the 
door,  and  Grandcourt  entered,  dressed  for  dinner. 
The  sight  of  him  brought  a  new  nervous  shock, 
and  Gwendolen  screamed  again  and  again  with 
hysterical  violence.  He  had  expected  to  see  her 
dressed  and  smiling,  ready  to  be  led  down.  He 
saw  her  pallid,  shrieking,  as  it  seemed  with  ter- 
ror, the  jewels  scattered  around  her  on  the  floor. 
Was  it  a  fit  of  madness  ? 

In  some  form  or  other  the  Furies  had  crossed 
his  threshold. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

In  all  ages  it  hath  been  a  favorite  text  that  a  potent 
love  hath  the  nature  of  an  isolated  fatality,  whereto 
the  mind's  opinions  and  wonted  resolves  are  altogether 
alien ;  as,  for  example,  Daphnis  his  frenzy,  wherein  it 
had  little  availed  him  to  have  been  convinced  of  Hera- 
clitus  his  doctrine ;  or  the  philtre-bred  passion  of  Tris- 
tan, who,  though  he  had  been  as  deep  as  Duns  Scotus, 
would  have  had  his  reasoning  marred  by  that  cup  too 
much:  or  Romeo  in  his  sudden  taking  for  Juliet, 
wherein  any  objections  he  might  have  Tield  against 
Ptolemy  had  made  little  difference  to  his  discourse 
under  the  balcony.  Yet  all  love  is  not  such,  even 
though  potent ;  nay,  this  passion  hath  as  large  scope 
as  any  for  allying  itself  with  every  operation  of  the 
soul :  so  that  it  shall  acknowledge  an  effect  from  the 
imagined  light  of  unproven  firmaments,  and  have  its 
scale  set  to  the  grander  orbits  of  what  hath  been  and 
shall  be. 

DERONDA,  on  his  return  to  town,  could  assure 
Sir  Hugo  of  his  having  lodged  in  Grandcourt's 
mind  a  distinct  understanding  that  he  could  get 
fifty  thousand  pounds  by  giving  up  a  prospect 
which  was  probably  distant,  and  not  absolutely 
certain;  but  he  had  no  further  sign  of  Grand- 
court's  disposition  in  the  matter  than  that  he 
was  evidently  inclined  to  keep  up  friendly  com- 
munications. 

"And  what  did  you  think  of  the  future  bride 
on  a  nearer  survey  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo. 

"  I  thought  better  of  her  than  I  did  at  Leu- 
bronn.  Roulette  was  not  a  good  setting  for  her ; 
it  brought  out  something  of  the  demon.  At  Dip. 
low  she  seemed  much  more  womanly  and  attract- 
ive— less  hard  and  self-possessed.  I  thought 
her  mouth  and  eyes  had  quite  a  different  expres- 
sion." 

"  Don't  flirt  with  her  too  much,  Dan,"  said  Sir 
Hugo,  meaning  to  be  agreeably  playful.  "  If  you 
make  Grandcourt  savage  when  they  come  to  the 
Abbey  at  Christmas,  it  will  interfere  with  my 
affairs." 

"  I  can  stay  in  town,  Sir." 

"No,  no.  Lady  Mallinger  and  the  children 
can't  do  without  you  at  Christmas.  Only  don't 
make  mischief — unless  you  can  get  up  a  duel, 
and  manage  to  shoot  Grandcourt,  which  might  be 
worth  a  little  inconvenience." 

"  I  don't  think  you  ever  saw  mo  flirt,"  said 
Deronda,  not  amused. 

"  Oh,  haven't  I,  though  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo,  pro- 
vokingly.  "  You  are  always  looking  tenderly  at 
the  women,  and  talking  to  them  in  a  Jesuitical 
way.  You  are  a  dangerous  young  fellow — a  kind 
of  Lovelace  who  will  make  the  Clarissas  run  after 
you  instead  of  your  running  after  them." 

What  was  the  use  of  being  exasperated  at  a 
tasteless  joke  ? — only  the  exasperation  comes  bo- 


fore  the  reflection  on  utility.  Few  friendly  re- 
marks are  more  annoying  than  the  information 
that  we  are  always  seeming  to  do  what  we  never 
mean  to  do.  Sir  Hugo's  notion  of  flirting,  it  was 
to  be  hoped,  was  rather  peculiar ;  for  his  own 
part,  Deronda  was  sure  that  he  had  never  flirted. 
But  he  was  glad  that  the  Baronet  had  no  knowl- 
edge about  the  redemption  of  Gwendolen's  neck- 
"ace  to  feed  his  taste  for  this  kind  of  rallying. 

He  would  be  on  his  guard  in  future ;  for  ex- 
imple,  in  his  behavior  at  Mrs.  Meyrick's,  where 
tie  was  about  to  pay  his  first  visit  since  his  ar- 
rival from  Leubronn.  For  Mirah  was  certainly 
a  creature  ia  whom  it  was  difficult  not  to  show  a 
tender  kind  of  interest  both  by  looks  and  speech. 

Mrs.  Meyrick  had  not  failed  to  send  Deronda  a 
report  of  Mirah's  well-being  in  her  family.  "  We 
are  getting  fonder  of  her  every  day,"  she  had  writ- 
ten. "  At  breakfast-time  we  all  look  toward  the 
door  with  expectation  to  see  her  come  in ;  and  we 
watch  her  and  listen  to  her  as  if  she  were  a  native 
from  a  new  country.  I  have  not  heard  a  word 
from  her  lips  that  gives  me  a  doubt  about  her. 
3he  is  quite  contented  and  full  of  gratitude.  My 
daughters  are  learning  from  her,  and  they  hope  to 

;t  her  other  pupils ;  for  she  is  anxious  not  to  eat 

e  bread  of  idleness,  but  to  work,  like  my  girls. 
Mab  says  our  life  has  become  like  a  fairy  tale, 
and  all" she  is  afraid  of  is  that  Mirah  will  turn 
nto  a  nightingale  again  and  fly  away  from  us. 
Her  voice  is  just  perfect :  not  loud  and  strong, 
but  searching  and  melting,  like  the  thoughts  of 
what  has  been.  That  is  the  way  old  people  like 
me  feel  a  beautiful  voice." 

But  Mrs.  Meyrick  did  not  enter  into  particulars, 
which  would  have  required  her  to  say  that  Amy 
and  Mab,  who  had  accompanied  Mirah  to  the 
synagogue,  found  the  Jewish  faith  less  reconcil- 
able with  their  wishes  in  her  case  than  in  that 
of  Scott's  Rebecca.  They  kept  silence  out  of  del- 
icacy to  Mirah,  with  whom  her  religion  was  too 
tender  a  subject  to  be  touched  lightly ;  but  after 
a  while,  Amy,  who  was  much  of  a  practical  re- 
former, could  not  restrain  a  question. 

'Excuse  me,  Mirah,  but  does  it  seem  quite 
right  to  you  that  the  women  should  sit  behind 
rails  in  a  gallery  apart  ?" 

"  Yes ;  I  never  thought  of  any  thing  else,"  said 
Mirah,  with  mild  s-urprise. 

"  And  you  like  better  to  see  the  men  with  their 
hats  on?"  said  Mab,  cautiously  proposing  the 
smallest  item  of  difference. 

"Oh  yes.  I  like  what  I  have  always  seen 
there,  because  it  brings  back  to  me  the  same  feel- 
ings— the  feelings  I  would  not  part  with  for  any 
thing  else  in  the  world." 

After  this,  any  criticism,  whether  of  doctrine 
or  of  practice,  would  have  seemed  to  these  gener- 
ous little  people  an  inhospitable  cruelty.  Mirah's 
religion  was  of  one  fibre  with  her  affections,  and 
had  never  presented  itself  to  her  as  a  set  of  prop- 
ositions. 

"  She  says  herself  she  is  a  very  bad  Jewess,  and 
does  not  half  know  her  people's  religion,"  said 
Amy,  when  Mirah  was  gone  to  bed.  "  Perhaps 
it  would  gradually  melt  away  from  her,  and  she 
would  pass  into  Christianity  like  the  rest  of  the 
world,  if  she  got  to  love  us  very  much,  and  never 
found  her  mother.  It  is  so  strange  to  be  of  the 
Jews'  religion  now." 

"  Oh,  oh,  oh !"  cried  Mab.  "  I  wish  I  were  not 
such  a  hideous  Christian,  How  can  an  ugly  Chris* 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


123 


tian,  who  is  always  dropping  her  work,  convert  a 
beautiful  Jewess,  who  has  not  a  fault  V" 

"  It  may  be  wicked  of  me,"  said  shrewd  Kate, 
"  but  I  can  not  help  wishing  that  her  mother  may 
not  be  found.  There  might  be  something  un- 
pleasant." 

"I  don't  think  it,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick. 
"  I  believe  Mirah  ia  cut  out  after  the  pattern  of 
her  mother.  And  what  a  joy  it  would  be  to  her 
to  have  such  a  daughter  brought  back  again ! 
But  a  mother's  feelings  are  not  worth  reckoning, 
I  suppose"  (she  shot  a  mischievous  glance  at  her 
own  daughters),  "and  a  dead  mother  is  worth 
more  than  a  living  one  ?" 

"  Well,  ivnd  so  she  may  be,  little  mother,"  said 
Kate ;  "  but  we  would  rather  hold  you  cheaper, 
and  have  you  alive." 

Not  only  the  Meyricks,  whose  various  knowl- 
edge had  been  acquired  by  the  irregular  foraging 
to  which  clever  girls  have  usually  been  reduced, 
but  Deronda  himself,  with  all  his  masculine  in- 
struction, had  been  roused  by  this  apparition  of 
Mirah  to  the  consciousness  of  knowing  hardly  any 
thing  about  modem  Judaism  or  the  inner  Jewish 
history.  The  Chosen  People  have  been  commonly 
treated  as  a  people  chosen  for  the  sake  of  some- 
body else ;  and  their  thinking  as  something  (no 
matter  exactly  what)  that  ought  to  have  been  en- 
tirely otherwise ;  and  Deronda,  like  his  neighbors, 
had  regarded  Judaism  as  a  sort  of  eccentric  fos- 
silized form,  which  an  accomplished  man  might 
dispense  with  studying,  and  leave  to  specialists. 
But  Mirah,  with  her  terrified  flight  from  one  par- 
ent, and  her  yearning  after  the  other,  had  flashed 
on  him  the  hitherto  neglected  reality  that  Juda- 
ism was  something  still  throbbing  in  human  lives, 
still  making  for  them  the  only  conceivable  vest- 
ure of  the  world ;  and  in  the  idling  excursion  on 
which  he  immediately  afterward  set  out  with  Sir 
Hugo  he  began  to  look  for  the  outsides  of  syn- 
agogues and  the  titles  of  books  about  the  Jews. 
This  wakening  of  a  new  interest — this  passing 
from  the  supposition  that  we  hold  the  right  opin- 
ions on  a  subject  we  are  careless  about,  to  a  sud- 
den care  for  it,  and  a  sense  that  our  opinions 
were  ignorance — is  an  effectual  remedy  for  ennui, 
which  unhappily  can  not  be  secured  on  a  physi- 
cian's prescription;  but  Deronda  had  carried  it 
with  him,  and  endured  his  weeks  of  lounging  all 
the  better.  It  was  on  this  journey  that  he  first 
entered  a  Jewish  synagogue — at  Frankfort — 
where  his  party  rested  on  a  Friday.  In  exploring 
the  Juden-gasse,  which  he  had  seen  long  before, 
he  remembered  well  enough  its  picturesque  old 
houses :  what  his  eyes  chiefly  dwelt  on  now  were 
the  human  types  there ;  and  his  thought,  busily 
connecting  them  with  the  past  phases  of  their 
race,  stirred  that  fibre  of  historic  sympathy  which 
had  helped  to  determine  in  him  certain  traits 
worth  mentioning  for  those  who  are  interested  in 
his  future.  True,  when  a  young  man  has  a  fine 
person,  no  eccentricity  of  manners,  the  education 
of  a  gentleman,  and  a  present  income,  it  is  not 
customary  to  feel  a  prying  curiosity  about  his  way 
of  thinking  or  his  peculiar  tastes.  He  may  very 
well  be  settled  in  life  as  an  agreeable  clever 
young  fellow  without  passing  a  special  examina- 
tion on  those  heads.  Later,  when  he  is  getting 
rather  slovenly  and  portly,  his  peculiarities  are 
more  distinctly  discerned,  and  it  is  taken  as  a 
mercy  if  they  are  not  highly  objectionable.  But 
any  one  wishing  to  understand  the  effect  of  aft- 


er-events on  Deronda  should  know  a  little  more 
of  what  he  was  at  five-and-twenty  than  was  evi- 
dent in  ordinary  intercourse. 

It  happened  that  the  very  vividness  of  his  im- 
pressions had  often  made  him  the  more  enigmat- 
ic to  his  friends,  and  had  contributed  to  an  ap- 
parent indefiniteness  in  his  sentiments.  His 
early-wakened  sensibility  and  reflectiveness  had 
developed  into  a  many-sided  sympathy,  which 
threatened  to  hinder  any  persistent  course  of  ac- 


tion:  as  soon  as  he  took  up  any  antagonsm, 
though  only  in  thought,  he  seemed  to  himself 
like  the  Sabine  warriors  in  the  memorable  story 


—with  nothing  to  meet  his  spear  but  flesh  of  his 
flesh  and  objects  that  he  loved.  His  imagina- 
tion had  so  Wrought  itself  to  the  habit  of  seeing 
things  as  they  probably  appeared  to  others,  that 
a  strong  partisanship,  unless  it  were  against  an 
immediate  oppression,  had  become  an  insincerity 
for  him.  His  plenteous,  flexible  sympathy  had 
ended  by  falling  into  one  current  with  that  re- 
flective analysis  which  tends  to  neutralize  sympa- 
thy. Few  men  were  able  to  keep  themselves 
clearer  of  vices  than  he  ;  yet  he  hated  vices  mild- 
ly, being  used  to  think  of  them  less  in  the  ab- 
stract than  as  a  part  of  mixed  human  natures 
having  an  individual  history,  which  it  was  the 
bent  of  his  mind  to  trace  with  understanding 
and  pity.  With  the  same  innate  balance  he  was 
fervidly  democratic  in  his  feeling  for  the  multi- 
tude, and  yet,  through  his  affections  and  imagina- 
tion, intensely  conservative  ;  voracious  of  specu- 
lations on  government  and  religion,  yet  loath  to 
part  with  long-sanctioned  forms  which,  for  him, 
were  quick  with  memories  and  sentiments  that  no 
argument  could  lay  dead.  We  fall  on  the  leaning 
side  ;  and  Deronda  suspected  himself  of  loving  too 
well  the  losing  causes  of  the  world.  Martyrdom 
changes  sides,  and  he  was  in  danger  of  changing 
with  it,  having  a  strong  repugnance  to  taking 
up  that  clew  of  success  which  the  order  of  the 
world  often  forces  upon  us  and  makes  it  treason 
against  the  common  weal  to  reject.  And  yet 
his  fear  of  falling  into  an  unreasoning  narrow- 
hatred  made  a  check  for  him  :  he  apologized  for 
the  heirs  of  privilege  ;  he  shrank  with  dislike  from 
the  loser's  bitterness  and  the  denunciatory  tone 
of  the  unaccepted  innovator.  A  too  reflective 
and  diffusive  sympathy  was  in  danger  of  paralyz- 
ing in  him  that  indignation  against  wrong  and 
that  selectness  of  fellowship  which  are  the  con- 
ditions of  moral  force  ;  and  in  the  last  few  years 
of  confirmed  manhood  he  had  become  so  keenly 
aware  of  this  that  what  he  most  longed  for  was 
either  some  external  event,  or  some  inward  light, 
that  would  urge  him  into  a  definite  line  of  action, 
and  compress  his  wandering  energy.  He  was 
ceasing  to  care  for  knowledge  —  he  had  no  ambi- 
tion for  practice  —  unless  they  could  both  be  gath- 
ered up  into  one  current  with  his  emotions  ;  and 
he  dreaded,  as  if  it  were  a  dwelling-place  of  lost 
souls,  that  dead  anatomy  of  culture  which  turns 
the  universe  into  a  mere  ceaseless  answer  to 
queries,  and  knows,  not  every  thing,  but  every 
thing  else  about  every  thing  —  as  if  one  should 
be  ignorant  of  nothing  concerning  the  scent  of 
violets  except  the  scent  itself,  for  which  one  had 
no  nostril.  But  how  and  whence  was  the  needed 
event  to  come  ?  —  the  influence  that  would  justify 
partiality,  and  make  him  what  he  longed  to  be, 
yet  was  unable  to  make  himself  —  an  organic  part 
of  social  life,  instead  of  roaming  hi  it  like  a 


124 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


yeamin 

social  passion,  but  without  fixed  local  habitat 
to  render  fellowship  real  ?  To  make  a  little  dif- 
ference for  the  better  was  what  he  was  not  con- 
tented to  live  without ;  but  how  make  it  ?  It  is 
one  thing  to  see  your  road,  another  to  cut  it.  He 
found  some  of  the  fault  in.  his  birth  and  the  way 
he  had  been  brought  up,  which  had  kid  no  spe- 
cial demands  on  him  and  given  him  no  fixed  re- 
lationship except  one  of  a  doubtful  kind ;  but  he 
did  not  attempt  to  hide  from  himself  that  he  had 
fallen  into  a  meditative  numbness,  and  was  glid- 
ing farther  and  farther  from  that  life  of  practi- 
cally energetic  sentiment  which  he  would  have 
proclaimed  (if  he  had  been  inclined  to  proclaim 
any  thing)  to  be  the  best  of  all  life,  and  for  him- 
self the  only  life  worth  living.  He  wanted  some 
way  of  keeping  emotion  and  its  progeny  of  senti- 
ments— which  make  the  savors  of  life — substan- 
tial and  strong  in  the  face  of  a  reflectiveness  that 
threatened  to  nullify  all  differences.  To  pound 
the  objects  of  sentiment  into  small  dust,  yet  keep 
sentiment  alive  and  active,  was  something  like 
the  famous  recipe  for  making  cannon — to  first 
take  a  round  hole  and  then  inclose  it  with  iron ; 
whatever  you  do,  keeping  fast  hold  of  your  round 
hole.  Yet  how  distinguish  what  our  will  may 
wisely  save  in  its  completeness  from  the  heaping 
of  cat  mummies  and  the  expensive  cult  of  en- 
shrined putrefactions  ? 

Something  like  this  was  the  common  under- 
current in  Deronda's  mind,  while  he  was  reading 
law  or  imperfectly  attending  to  polite  conversa- 
tion. Meanwhile  he  had  not  set  about  one  func- 
tion in  particular  with  zeal  and  steadiness.  Not 
an  admirable  experience,  to  be  proposed  as  an 
ideal ;  but  a  form  of  struggle  before  break  of  day 
which  some  young  men  since  the  patriarch  have 
had  to  pass  through,  with  more  or  less  of  bruising 
if  not  laming. 

I  have  said  that  under  his  calm  exterior  he 
had  a  fervor  which  made  him  easily  feel  the 
presence  of  poetry  in  every-day  events ;  and  the 
forms  of  the  Juden-gasse,  rousing  the  sense  of 
union  with  what  is  remote,  set  him  musing  on 
two  elements  of  our  historic  life  which  that  sense 
raises  into  the  same  region  of  poetry — the  faint 
beginnings  of  faiths  and  institutions,  and  their 
obscure  lingering  decay,  the  dust  and  withered 
remnants  with  which  they  are  apt  to  be  covered 
only  enhancing  for  the  awakened  perception  the 
impressiveness  either  of  a  sublimely  penetrating 
life,  as  in  the  twin  green  leaves  that  will  become 
the  sheltering  tree,  or  of  a  pathetic  inheritance  in 
which  all  the  grandeur  and  the  glory  have  become 
a  sorrowing  memory. 

This  imaginative  stirring,  as  he  turned  out  of 
the  Juden-gasse,  and  continued  to  saunter  in  the 
warm  evening  aft,  meaning  to  find  his  way  to  the 
synagogue,  neutralized  the  repellent  effect  of  cer- 
tain ugly  little  incidents  on  his  way.  Turning  into 
an  old  book-shop  to  ask  the  exact  time  of  service  at 
the  synagogue,  he  was  affectionately  directed  by 
a  precocious  Jewish  youth,  who  entered  cordially 
into  his  wanting  not  the  fine  new  building  of  the 
Reformed,  but  the  old  Rabbinical  school  of  the  or- 
thodox ;  and  then  cheated  him  like  a  pure  Teuton, 
only  with  more  amenity,  in  his  charge  for  a  book 
quite  out  of  request  as  one  "  nicht  so  leicht  zu  be- 
kommen."  Meanwhile  at  the  opposite  counter  a 
deaf  and,  grisly,  tradesman  was  casting  a  flinty  look 
at  certain  cards,  apparently  combining  advantages 


of  business  with  religion,  and  shoutingly  proposed 
to  him  in  Jew  dialect  by  a  dingy  man  in  a  tall 
coat  hanging  from  neck  to  heel,  a  bag  in  hand,  and 
a  broad  low  hat  surmounting  his  chosen  nose — 
who  had  no  sooner  disappeared  than  another  dingy 
man  of  the  same  pattern  issued  from  the  back- 
ward glooms  of  the  shop,  and  also  shouted  in  the 
same  dialect.  In  fact,  Deronda  saw  various  queer- 
looking  Israeh'tes  not  altogether  without  guile, 
and  just  distinguishable  from  queer-looking  Chris- 
tians of  the  same  mixed  morale.  In  his  anxiety 
about  Mirah's  relatives,  he  had  lately  been  think- 
ing of  vulgar  Jews  with  a  sort  of  personal  alarm. 
But  a  little  comparison  will  often  diminish  our 
surprise  and  disgust  at  the  aberrations  of  Jews 
and  other  dissidents  whose  lives  do  not  offer  a 
consistent  or  lovely  pattern  of  their  creed ;  and 
this  evening  Deronda,  becoming  more  conscious 
that  he  was  falling  into  unfairness  and  ridiculous 
exaggeration,  began  to  use  that  corrective  com- 
parison: he  paid  his  thaler  too  much  without 
prejudice  to  his  interest  in  the  Hebrew  destiny, 
or  his 'wish  to  find  the  Rabbini&che  Schule,  which 
he  arrived  at  by  sunset,  and  entered  with  a  good 
congregation  of  men. 

He  happened  to  take  his  seat  in  a  line  with  an 
elderly  man  from  whom  he  was  distant  enough  to 
glance  at  him  more  than  once  as  rather  a  notice- 
able figure — his  ordinary  clothes,  as  well  as  the 
talith  or  white  blue-fringed  kind  of  blanket,  which 
is  the  garment  of  prayer,  being  much  worn ;  while 
his  ample  white  beard  and  old  felt  hat  framed  a 
profile  of  that  fine  contour  which  may  as  easily 
be  Italian  as  Hebrew.  He  returned  Deronda's 
notice  till  at  last  their  eyes  met :  an  undesirable 
chance  with  unknown  persons,  and  a  reason  to 
Deronda  for  not  looking  again ;  but  he  immedi- 
ately found  an  open  prayer-book  pushed  toward 
him,  and  had  to  bow  his  thanks.  However,  the 
white  talitfis  had  mustered,  the  Reader  had  mount- 
ed to  the  almemor  or  platform,  and  the  service  be- 
gan. Deronda,  having  looked  enough  at  the  Ger- 
man translation  of  the  Hebrew  in  the  book  before 
him  to  know  that  he  was  chiefly  hearing  Psalms 
and  Old  Testament  passages  or  phrases,  gave  him- 
self up  to  that  strongest  effect  of  chanted  liturgies 
which  is  independent  of  detailed  verbal  meaning — 
like  the  effect  of  an  Allegri's  Miserere  or  a  Pales- 
trina's  Magnificat.  The  most  powerful  movement 
of  feeling  with  a  liturgy  ]»  the  prayer  which  seeks 
for  nothing  special,  but  is  a  yearning  to  escape 
from  the  limitations  of  our  own  weakness,  and  an 
invocation  of  all  Good  to  enter  and  abide  with  us ; 
or  else  a  self-oblivious  lifting  up  of  gladness,  a 
Gloria  in  czcelsis  that  such  Good  exists ;  both  the 
yearning  and  the  exultation  gathering  their  ut- 
most force  from  the  sense  of  communion  in  a  form 
which  has  expressed  them  both,  for  long  genera- 
tions of  struggling  fellow-men.  The  Hebrew  litur- 
gy, like  others,  has  its  transitions  of  litany,  lyric, 
proclamation,  dry  statement,  and  blessing ;  but  this 
evening  all  were  one  for  Deronda :  the  chant  of 
the  Chazari'a  or  Reader's  grand  wide-ranging  voice, 
with  its  passage  from  monotony  to  sudden  cries, 
the  outburst  of  sweet  boys'  voices  from  the  little 
quire,  the  devotional  swaying  of  men's  bodies 
backward  and  forward,  the  very  commonness  of 
the  building  and  shabbincss  of  the  scene  where 
a  national  faith,  which  had  penetrated  the  think- 
ing of  half  the  world,  and  moulded  the  splendid 
forms  of  that  world's  religion,  was  finding  a  re- 
mote, obscure  echo — all  were  blent  for  him  as 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


125 


one  expression  of  a  binding  history,  tragic  and 
yet  glorious.  He  wondered  at  the  strength  of 
his  own  feeling ;  it  seemed  beyond  the  occasion — 
•what  one  might  imagine  to  be  a  divine  influx  in 
the  darkness,  before  there  was  any  vision  to  in- 
terpret. The  whole  scene  was  a  coherent  strain, 
its  burden  a  passionate  regret,  which,  if  he  had 
known  the  liturgy  for  the  Day  of  Reconciliation, 
he  might  have  clad  in  its  antithetic  burden : 
"Happy  the  eye  which  saw  all. these  things ;  but 
verily  to  hear  only  of  them  afflicts  our  soul. 
Happy  the  eye  that  saw  our  temple  and  the  joy 
of  our  congregation ;  but  verily  to  hear  only  of 
them  afflicts  our  soul.  Happy  the  eye  that  saw 
the  fingers  when  tuning  every  kind  of  song ;  but 
verily  to  hear  only  of  them  afflicts  our  soul." 

But  with  the  cessation  of  the  devotional  sounds 
and  the  movement  of  many  indifferent  faces  and 
vulgar  figures  before  him,  there  darted  into  his 
mind  the  frigid  idea  that  he  had  probably  been 
alone  in  his  feeling,  and  perhaps  the  only  person 
in  the  congregation  for  whom  the  service  was  more 
than  a  dull  routine.  There  was  just  time  for  this 
chilling  thought  before  he  had  bowed  to  his  civil 
neighbor  and  was  moving  #way  with  the  rest — 
when  he  felt  a  hand  on  his  arm,  and  turning  with 
the  rather  unpleasant  sensation  which  this  abrupt 
sort  of  claim  is  apt  to  bring,  he  saw  close  to  him 
the  white-bearded  face  of  that  neighbor,  who  said 
to  him,  in  German,  "  Excuse  me,  young  gentleman 
— allow  me — what  is  your  parentage — your  moth- 
er's family — her  maiden  name  ?" 

Deronda  had  a  strongly  resistant  feeling:  he 
was  inclined  to  shake  off  hastily  the  touch  on  his 
arm ;  but  he  managed  to  slip  it  away,  and  said, 
coldly,  "  I  am  an  Englishman." 

The  questioner  looked  at  him  dubiously  still  for 
an  instant,  then  just  lifted  his  hat  and  turned  away 
— whether  under  a  sense  of  having  made  a  mistake 
or  of  having  been  repulsed  Deronda  was  uncertain. 
In  his  walk  back  to  the  hotel  he  tried  to  still  any 
uneasiness  on  the  subject  by  reflecting  that  he 
could  not  have  acted  differently.  How  could  he 
say  that  he  did  not  know  the  name  of  his  mother's 
family  to  that  total  stranger  ? — who,  indeed,  had 
taken  an  unwarrantable  liberty  in  the  abruptness 
of  his  question,  dictated  probably  by  some  fancy 
of  likeness  such  as  often  occurs  without  real  sig- 
nificance. The  incident,  he  said  to  himself,  was 
trivial ;  but  whatever  import  it  might  have,  his 
inward  shrinking  on  the  occasion  was  too  strong 
for  him  to  be  sorry  that  he  had  cut  it  short.  It 
was  a  reason,  however,  for  his  not  mentioning  the 
synagogue  to  the  Mallingers — in  addition  to  his 
usual  inclination  to  reticence  on  any  thing  that 
the  Baronet  would  have  been  likely  to  call  Quix- 
otic enthusiasm.  Hardly  any  man  could  be  more 
good-natured  than  Sir  Hugo  ;  indeed,  in  his  kind- 
liness, especially  to  women,  he  did  actions  which 
others  would  have  called  romantic  ;  but  he  never 
took  a  romantic  view  of  them,  and  hi  general 
smiled  at  the  introduction  of  motives  on  a  grand 
scale,  or  of  reasons  that  lay  very  far  off.  This 
was  the  point  of  strongest  difference  between 
him  and  Deronda,  who  rarely  ate  his  breakfast 
without  some  silent  discursive  flight  after  grounds 
for  filling  up  his  day  according  to  the  practice  of 
his  contemporaries. 

This  halt  at  Frankfort  was  taken  on  their  way 
home,  and  its  impressions  were  kept  the  more 
actively  vibrating  in  him  by  the  duty  of  caring 
for  Mirah's  welfare.  That  question  about  his 


parentage,  which,  if  he  had  not  both  inwardly 
and  outwardly  shaken  it  off  as  trivial,  would  have 
seemed  a  threat  rather  than  a  promise  of  revela- 
tion, had  re-enforced  his  anxiety  as  to  the  effect 
of  finding  Mirah's  relatives  and  his  resolve  to 
proceed  with  caution.  If  he  made  any  unpleas- 
ant discovery,  was  he  bound  to  a  disclosure  that 
might  cast  a  new  net  of  trouble  around  her  ? 

He  had  written  to  Mrs.  Meyrick  to  announce 
iris  visit  at  four  o'clock,  and  he  found  Mirah  seat- 
ed at  work  with  only  Mrs.  Meyrick  and  Mab,  the 
open  piano,  and  all  the  glorious  company  of  en- 
gravings. The  dainty  neatness  of  her  hair  and 
dress,  the  glow  of  tranquil  happiness  in  a  face 
where  a  painter  need  have  changed  nothing  if  he 
tiad  wanted  to  put  it  in  front  of  the  host  singing 
"Peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to  men,"  made  a 
contrast  to  his  first  vision  of  her  that  was  delight- 
ful to  Deronda's  eyes.  Mirah  herself  was  think- 
ing of  it,  and  immediately  on  their  greeting,  said, 

"  See  how  different  I  am  from  that  miserable 
creature  by  the  river ! — all  because  you  found  me 
and  brought  me  to  the  very  best." 

'  It  was  my  good  chance  to  find  you,"  said  De- 
ronda. "  Any  other  man  would  have  been  glad 
to  do  what  I  did."  , 

"  That  is  not  the  right  way  of  thinking  about 
it,"  said  Mirah,  shaking  her  head  with  decisive 
gravity.  "  I  think  of  what  really  was.  It  was 
you,  and  not  another,  who  found  me  and  were 
good  to  me." 

"I   agree   with   Mirah,"  said   Mrs.  Meyrick. 

Saint  Anybody  is  a  bad  saint  to  pray  to." 

"  Besides,  Anybody  could  not  have  brought  me 
to  you,"  said  Mirah,  smiling  at  Mrs.  Meyrick. 
"  And  I  would  rather  be  with  you  than  with  any 
one  else  hi  the  world  except  my  mother.  I  won- 
der if  ever  a  poor  little  bird,  that  was  lost  and 
could  not  fly,  was  taken  and  put  into  a  warm  nest 
where  there  was  a  mother  and  sisters  who  took 
to  it  so  that  every  thing  came  naturally,  as  if  it 
had  been  always  there.  I  hardly  thought  before 
that  the  world  could  ever  be  as  happy  and  with- 
out fear  as  it  is  to  me  now."  She  looked  medi- 
tative a  moment,  and  then  said,  "Sometimes  I 
am  a.  little  afraid." 

'  What  is  it  you  are  afraid  of  ?"  said  Deronda, 
with  anxiety. 

1  That  when  I  am  turning  at  the  corner  of  a 
street  I  may  meet  my  father.  It  seems  dreadful 
that  I  should  be  afraid  of  meeting  him.  That  is 
my  only  sorrow,"  said  Mirah,  plaintively. 

"  It  is  surely  not  very  probable,"  said  Deronda, 
wishing  that  it  were  less  so ;  then,  not  to  let  the 
opportunity  escape,  "Would  it  be  a  great  grief 
to  you  now  if  you  were  never  to  meet  your 
mother  ?" 

She  did  not  answer  immediately,  but  medita- 
ted again,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  opposite 
wall.  Then  she  turned  them  on  Deronda  and 
said,  firmly,  as  if  she  had  arrived  at  the  exact 
truth :  "  I  want  her  to  know  that  I  have  always 
loved  her,  and  if  she  is  alive  I  want  to  comfort 
her.  She  may  be  dead.  If  she  were,  I  should 
long  to  know  where  she  was  buried ;  and  to  know 
whether  my  brother  lives  to  say  Kaddish  hi  mem- 
ory of  her.  But  I  will  try  not  to  grieve.  I  have 
thought  much  for  so  many  years  of  her  being 
dead.  And  I  shall  have  her  w'ith  me  in  my  mind, 
as  I  have  always  had.  We  can  never  be  really 
parted.  I  think  I  have  never  sinned  against  her. 
I  have  always  tried  not  to  do  what  would  hurt 


126 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


her.  Only  she  might  be  sorry  that  I  was  not  a 
good  Jewess." 

"  In  what  way  are  you  not  a  good  Jewess  ?" 
said  Deronda. 

"I  am  ignorant,  and  we  never  observed  the 
laws,  but  lived  among  Christians  just  as  they  did. 
But  I  have  heard  my  father  laugh  at  the  strict- 
ness of  the  Jews  about  their  food  and  all  cus- 
toms, aud  their  not  liking  Christians.  I  think 
my  mother  was  strict ;  but  she  could  never  want 
me  not  to  like  those  who  are  better  to  me  than 
any  of  my  own  people  I  have  ever  known.  I 
think  I  could  obey  in  other  things  that  she  wish- 
ed, but  not  in  that.  It  is  so  much  easier  to  me 
to  share  in  love  than  in  hatred.  I  remember  a 
play  I  read  in  German — since  I  have  been  here, 
it  has  come  into  my  mind — where  the  heroine 
says  something  like  that." 

" Antigone"  said  Deronda, 

"Ah,  you  know  it.  But  I  do  not  believe  that 
my  mother  would  wish  me  not  to  love  my  best 
friends.  She  would  be  grateful  to  them."  Here 
Mirah  had  turned  to  Mrs.  Meyrick,  and,  with  a 
sudden  lighting  up  of  her  whole  countenance, 
she  said,  "  Oh,  if  we  ever  do  meet  and  know  each 
other  as  we  are  now,  so  that  I  could  tell  what 
would  comfort  her,  I  should  be  so  full  of  blessed- 
ness, my  soul  would  know  no  want  but  to  love 
her !" 

"  God  bless  you,  child !"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  the 
words  escaping  involuntarily  from  her  motherly 
heart.  But  to  relieve  the  strain  of  feeling,  she 
looked  at  Deronda  and  said :  "  It  is  curious  that 
Mirah,  who  remembers  her  mother  so  well,  it  is 
as  if  she  saw  her,  can  not  recall  her  brother  the 
least  bit,  except  the  feeling  of  having  been  car- 
ried by  him  when  she  was  tired,  and  of  his  being 
near  her  when  she  was  in  her  mother's  lap.  It 
must  be  that  he  was  rarely  at  home.  He  was 
already  grown  up.  It  is  a  pity  her  brother  should 
be  quite  a  stranger  to  her." 

"  He  is  good ;  I  feel  sure  Ezra  is  good,"  said 
Mirah,  eagerly.  "  He  loved  my  mother — he  would 
take  care  of  her.  I  remember  more  of  him  than 
that.  I  remember  my  mother's  voice  once  call- 
ing, 'Ezra!'  and  then  his  answering  from  the 
distance,  'Mother!'" — Mirah  had  changed  her 
voice  a  little  hi  each  of  these  words,  and  had 
given  them  a  loving  intonation — "and  then  he 
came  close  to  us.  I  feel  sure  he  is  good.  I  have 
always  taken  comfort  from  that." 

It  was  impossible  to  answer  this  either  with 
agreement  or  doubt.  Mrs.  Meyrick  and  Deronda 
exchanged  a  quick  glance:  about  this  brother 
she  felt  as  painfully  dubious  as  he  did.  But  Mi- 
rah went  on,  absorbed  in  her  memories : 

"Is  it  not  wonderful  how  I  remember  the 
voices  better  than  any  thing  else  ?  I  think  they 
must  go  deeper  into  us  than  other  things.  I  have 
often  fancied  heaven  might  be  made  of  voices." 

"Like  your  singing— yes,"  said  Mab,  who  had 
hitherto  kept  a  modest  silence,  and  now  spoke 
bashfully,  as  was  her  wont  in  the  presence  of 
Prince  Camaralzaman.  "Ma,  do  ask  Mirah  to 
sing.  Mr.  Deronda  has  not  heard  her." 

"  Would  it  be  disagreeable  to  you  to  sing  now  »" 
said  Deronda,  with  a  more  deferential  gentleness 
than  he  had  ever  been  conscious  of  before. 

"  Oh,  I  shall  like  it,"  said  Mirah.  "  My  voice 
has  come  back  a  little  with  rest." 

Perhaps  her  ease  of  manner  was  due  to  some- 
thing more  than  the  simplicity  of  her  nature. 


The  circumstances  of  her  life  had  made  her 
think  of  every  thing  she  did  as  work  demanded 
from  her,  in  which  affectation  had  nothing  to  do ; 
and  she  had  begun  her  work  before  self-con- 
sciousness was  born. 

She  immediately  rose  and  went  to  the  piano — 
a  somewhat  worn  instrument  that  seemed  to  get 
the  better  of  its  infirmities  under  the  firm  touch 
of  her  small  fingers  as  she  preluded.  Deronda 
placed  himself  where  he  could  see  her  while  she 
sang;  and  she  took  every  thing  as  quietly  as  if 
she  had  been  a  child  going  to  breakfast. 

Imagine  her — it  is  always  good  to  imagine  a 
human  creature  in  whom  bodily  loveliness  seems 
as  properly  one  with  the  entire  being  as  the  bodi- 
ly loveliness  of  those  wondrous  transparent  orbs 
of  life  that  we  find  in  the  sea — imagine  her  with 
her  dark  hair  brushed  from  her  temples,  but  yet 
showing  certain  tiny  rings  there  which  had  cun- 
ningly found  their  own  way  back,  the  mass  of  it 
hanging  behind  just  to  the  nape  of  the  little  neck 
hi  curly  fibres,  such  as  renew  themselves  at  their 
own  will  after  being  bathed  into  straightness  like 
that  of  water  -  grasses.  Then  see  the  perfect 
cameo  her  profile  makes,  cut  in  a  duskish  shell 
where  by  some  happy  fortune  there  pierced  a 
gem-like  darkness  for  the  eye  and  eyebrow ;  the 
delicate  nostrils  defined  enough  to  be  ready  for 
sensitive  movements,  the  finished  ear,  the  firm 
curves  of  the  chin  and  neck  entering  into  the  ex- 
pression of  a  refinement  which  was  not  feeble- 
ness. 

She  sang  Beethoven's  "  Per  pieta  non  dirmi 
addio,"  with  a  subdued  but  searching  pathos 
which  had  that  essential  of  perfect  singing,  the 
making  one  oblivious  of  art  or  manner,  and  only 
possessing  one  with  the  song.  It  was  the  sort  of 
voice  that  gives  the  impression  of  being  meant, 
like  a  bird's  wooing,  for  an  audience  near  and 
beloved.  Deronda  began  by  looking  at  her,  but 
felt  himself  presently  covering  his  eyes  with  his 
hand,  wanting  to  seclude  the  melody  in  darkness ; 
then  he  refrained  from  what  might  seem  oddity, 
and  was  ready  to  meet  the  look  of  mute  appeal 
which  she  turned  toward  him  at  the  end. 

"I  think  I  never  enjoyed  a  song  more  than 
that,"  he  said,  gratefully. 

"  You  like  my  singing  ?  I  am  so  glad,"  she 
said,  with  a  smile  of  delight.  "  It  has  been  a 
great  pain  to  me,  because  it  failed  in  what  it  was 
wanted  for.  But  now  we  think  I  can  use  it  to 
get  my  bread.  I  have  really  been  taught  well. 
And  now  I  have  two  pupils,  that  Miss  Meyrick 
found  for  me.  They  pay  me  nearly  two  crowns 
for  their  two  lessons." 

"I  think  I  know  some  ladies  who  would  find 
you  many  pupils  after  Christmas,"  said  Deronda. 
"  You  would  not  mind  singing  before  any  one  who 
wished  to  hear  you  ?" 

"  Oh  no ;  I  want  to  do  something  to  get  money. 
I  could  teach  reading  and  speaking,  Mrs.  Meyrick 
thinks.  But  if  no  one  would  learn  of  me,  that  is 
difficult."  Mirah  smiled  with  a  touch  of  merri- 
ment he  had  not  seen  in  her  before.  "  I  dare  say 
I  should  find  her  poor — I  mean  my  mother.  I 
should  want  to  get  money  for  her.  And  I  can 
not  always  live  on  charity;  though" — here  she 
turned  so  as  to  take  all  three  of  her  companions 
in  one  glance — "  it  is  the  sweetest  charity  in  all 
the  world." 

"  I  should  think  you  can  get  rich,"  said  Deron- 
da, smiling.  "  Great  ladies  will  perhaps  like  you 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


127 


to  teach  their  daughters.  We  shall  see.  But 
now,  do  sing  again  to  us." 

She  went  on  willingly,  singing  with  ready  mem- 
ory various  things  by  Gordigiani  and  Schubert; 
then,  when  she  had  left  the  piano,  Mab  said,  en- 
treatingly,  "Oh,  Mirah,  if  you  would  not  mind 
singing  the  little  hymn." 

''It  is  too  childish,"  said  Mirah.  "It  is  like 
lisping." 

"  What  is  the  hymn  ?"  said  Deronda. 

"It  is  the  Hebrew  hymn  she  remembers  her 
mother  singing  over  her  when  she  lay  in  her  cot," 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick. 

"  I  should  like  very  much  to  hear  it,"  said  De- 
ronda, "  if  you  think  I  am  worthy  to  hear  what  is 
so  sacred." 

"  I  will  sing  it  if  you  like,"  said  Mirah,  "  but 
I  don't  sing  real  words — only  here  and  there  a 
syllable  like  hers — the  rest  is  lisping.  Do  you 
know  Hebrew  ?  because  if  you  do,  my  singing  will 
seem  childish  nonsense." 

Deronda  shook  his  head.  "It  will  be  quite 
good  Hebrew  to  me." 

Mirah  crossed  her  little  feet  and  hands  in  her 
easiest  attitude,  and  then  lifted  up  her  head  at  an 
angle  which  seemed  to  be  directed  to  some  in- 
visible face  bent  over  her,  while  she  sang  a  little 
hymn  of  quaint  melancholy  intervals,  with  syl- 
lables that  really  seemed  childish  lisping  to  her 
audience ;  but  the  voice  in  which  she  gave  it  forth 
had  gathered  even  a  sweeter,  more  cooing  tender- 
ness than  was  heard  in  her  other  songs. 

"  If  I  were  ever  to  know  the  real  words,  I  should 
still  go  on  in  my  old  way  with  them,"  said  Mirah, 
when  she  had  repeated  the  hymn  several  times. 

"  Why  not  ?"  said  Deronda.  "  The  lisped  syl- 
lables are  very  full  of  meaning." 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  A  mother 
hears  something  like  a  lisp  in  her  children's  talk 
to  the  very  last.  Their  words  are  not  just  what 
every  body  else  says,  though  they  may  be  spelled 
the  same.  If  I  were  to  live  till  my  Hans  got  old, 
I  should  still  see  the  boy  in  him.  A  mother's 
love,  I  often  say,  is  like  a  tree  that  has  got  all  the 
wood  in  it,  from  the  very  first  it  made." 

"Is  not  that  the  way  with  friendship  too?" 
said  Deronda,  smiling.  "  We  must  not  let  moth- 
ers be  too  arrogant." 

The  bright  little  woman  shook  her  head  over 
her  darning. 

"  It  is  easier  to  find  an  old  mother  than  an  old 
friend.  Friendships  begin  with  liking  or  grati- 
tude— roots  that  can  be  pulled  up.  Mother's 
love  begins  deeper  down." 

"  Like  what  you  were  saying  about  the  influ- 
ence of  voices,"  said  Deronda,  looking  at  Mirah. 
"  I  don't  think  your  hymn  would  have  had  more 
expression  for  me  if  I  had  known  the  words.  I 
went  to  the  synagogue  at  Frankfort  before  I  came 
home,  and  the  service  impressed  me  just  as  much 
as  if  I  had  followed  the  words — perhaps  more." 

"  Oh,  was  it  great  to  you  ?  Did  it  go  to  your 
heart?"  said  Mirah,  eagerly.  "I  thought  none 
but  our  people  would  feel  that.  I  thought  it  was 
all  shut  away  like  a  river  in  a  deep  valley,  where 
only  heaven  saw — I  mean — "  She  hesitated,  feel- 
ing that  she  could  not  disentangle  her  thought 
from  its  imagery. 

"  I  understand,"  said  Deronda.  "  But  there  is 
not  really  such  a  separation — deeper  down,  as 
Mrs.  Meyrick  says.  Our  religion  is  chiefly  a  He- 
brew religion ;  and  since  Jews  are  men,  their  re- 


ligious feelings  must  have  much  in  common  with 
those  of  other  men,  just  as  their  poetry,  though 
in  one  sense  peculiar,  has  a  great  deal  in  com- 
mon with  the  poetry  of  other  nations.  Still,  it  is 
to  be  expected  that  a  Jew  would  feel  the  forms 
of  his  people's  religion  more  than  one  of  another 
race — and  yet" — here  Deronda  hesitated  in  his. 
turn — "  that  is  perhaps  not  always  so." 

"  Ah,  no,"  said  Mirah,  sadly.  "  I  have  seen  that. 
I  have  seen  them  mock.  Is  it  not  like  mocking 
your  parents? — like  rejoicing  in  your  parents' 
shame  ?" 

"  Some  minds  naturally  rebel  against  whatever 
they  were  brought  up  in,  and  like  the  opposite: 
they  see  the  faults  in  what  is  nearest  to  them," 
said  Deronda,  apologetically. 

"But  you  are  not  like  that,"  said  Mirah,  look- 
ing at  him  with  unconscious  fixedness. 

"No,  I  think  not,"  said  Deronda;  "but  you 
know  I  was  not  brought  up  as  a  Jew." 

"  Ah,  I  am  always  forgetting,"  said  Mirah,  with 
a  look  of  disappointed  recollection,  and  slightly 
blushing. 

Deronda  also  felt  rather  embarrassed,  and  there 
was  an  awkward  pause,  which  he  put  an  end  to 
by  saying,  playfully, 

"  Whichever  way  we  take  it,  we  have  to  toler- 
ate each  other ;  for  if  we  all  went  in  opposition 
to  our  teaching,  we  must  end  in  diff crence,  just 
the  same." 

"To  be  sure.  We  should  go  on  forever  in 
zigzags,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  I  think  it  is  very 
weak-minded  to  make  your  creed  up  by  the  rule 
of  contrary.  Still,  one  may  honor  one's  parents 
without  following  their  notions  exactly,  any  more 
than  the  exact  cut  of  their  clothing.  My  father 
was  a  Scotch  Calvinist  and  my  mother  was  a 
French  Calvinist :  I  am  neither  quite  Scotch,  nor 
quite  French,  nor  two  Calvinists  rolled  into  one, 
yet  I  honor  my  parents'  memory." 

"  But  I  could  not  make  myself  not  a  Jewess," 
said  Mirah,  insistently,  "even  if  I  changed  my 
belief." 

"No,  my  dear.  But  if  Jews  and  Jewesses 
went  on  changing  their  religion,  and  making  no 
difference  between  themselves  and  Christians, 
there  would  come  a  time  when  there  would  be 
no  Jews  to  be  seen,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  taking 
that  consummation  very  cheerfully. 

"  Oh,  please  not  to  say  that,"  said  Mirah,  the 
tears  gathering.  "It  is  the  first  unkind  thing 
you  ever  said.  I  will  not  begin  that.  I  will  nev- 
er separate  myself  from  my  mother's  people.  I 
was  forced  to  fly  from  my  father ;  but  if  he  came 
back  in  age  and  weakness  and  want,  and  needed 
me,  should  I  say, '  This  is  not  my  father  ?'  If  he 
had  shame,  I  must  share  it.  It  was  he  who  was 
given  to  me  for  my  father,  and  not  another.  And 
so  it  is  with  my  people.  I  will  always  be  a  Jew- 
ess. I  will  love  Christians  when  they  are  good, 
like  you.  But  I  will  always  cling  to  my  people. 
I  will  always  worship  with  them." 

As  Mirah  had  gone  on  speaking  she  had  be- 
come possessed  with  a  sorrowful  passion — fer- 
vent, not  violent.  Holding  her  little  hands  tightly 
clasped  and  looking  at  Mrs.  Meyrick  with  beseech- 
ing, she  seemed  to  Deronda  a  personification  of 
that  spirit  which  impelled  men  after  a  long  inher- 
itance of  professed  Catholicism  to  leave  wealth 
and  high  place,  and  risk  their  lives  in  flight,  that 
they  might  join  their  own  people  and  say,  "  I  am 
a  Jew." 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


"Mirah,  Mirah,  my  dear  child,  you  mistake 
me !"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  alarmed.  "  God  forbid 
I  should  want  you  to  do  any  thing  against  your 
conscience !  I  was  only  saying  what  might  be  if 
the  world  went  on.  But  I  had  better  have  left 
the  world  alone,  and  not  wanted  to  be  overwise. 
Forgive  me,  come!  we  will  not  try  to  take  you 
from  any  body  you  feel  has  more  right  to  you." 

"  I  would  do  any  thing  else  for  you.  I  owe 
you  my  life,"  said  Mirah,  not  yet  quite  calm. 

"Hush,  hush,  now,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "I 
have  been  punished  enough  for  wagging  my 
tongue  foolishly — making  an  almanac  for  the 
Millennium,  as  my  husband  used  to  say." 

"But  every  thing  in  the  world  must  come  to 
an  end  some  tune.  We  must  bear  to  think  of 
that,"  said  Mab,  unable  to  hold  her  peace  on  this 
point.  She  had  already  suffered  from  a  bondage 
of  tongue  which  threatened  to  become  severe  if 
Mirah  were  to  be  too  much  indulged  in  this  in- 
convenient susceptibility  to  innocent  remarks. 

Deronda  smiled  at  the  irregular  blonde  face, 
brought  into  strange  contrast  by  the  side  of 
Mirah's — smiled,  Mab  thought,  rather  sarcastic- 
ally as  he  said,  "  That  prospect  of  every  thing 
coming  to  an  end  will  not  guide  us  far  in  prac- 
tice. Mirah's  feelings,  she  tells  us,  are  concerned 
with  what  is." 

Mab  was  confused  and  wished  she  had  not 
spoken,  since  Mr.  Deronda  seemed  to  think  that 
she  had  found  fault  with  Mirah;  but  to  have 
spoken  once  is  a  tyrannous  reason  for  speaking 
again,  and  she  said, 

"  I  only  meant  that  we  must  have  courage  to 
hear  things,  else  there  is  hardly  any  thing  we  can 
talk  about."  Mab  felt  herself  unanswerable  here, 
inclining  to  the  opinion  of  Socrates,  "  What  mo- 
tive has  a  man  to  li ve,  if  not  for  the  pleasures  of 
discourse  ?" 

Deronda  took  his  leave  soon  after,  and  when 
Mrs.  Meyrick  went  outside  with  him  to  exchange 
a  few  words  about  Mirah,  he  said, "  Hans  is  to  share 
my  chambers  when  he  comes  at  Christmas." 

"  You  have  written  to  Rome  about  that  ?"  said 
Mrs.  Meyrick,  her  face  lighting  up.  "  How  very 
good  and  thoughtful  of  you!  You  mentioned 
Mirah,  then?" 

"  Yes,  I  referred  to  her.  I  concluded  he  knew 
every  thing  from  you." 

"  I  must  confess  my  folly.  I  have  not  yet  writ- 
ten a  word  about  her.  I  have  always  been  mean- 
ing to  do  it,  and  yet  have  ended  my  letter  without 
saying  a  word.  And  I  told  the  girls  to  leave  it  to 
me.  However ! — Thank  you  a  thousand  times." 

Deronda  divined  something  of  what  was  in  the 
mother's  mind,  and  his  divination  re-enforced  a 
certain  anxiety  already  present  in  him.  His  in- 
ward colloquy  was  not  soothing.  He  said  to  him- 
self that  no  man  could  see  this  exquisite  creature 
without  feeling  it  possible  to  fall  in  love  with  her; 
but  all  the  fervor  of  his  nature  was  engaged  on 
the  side  of  precaution.  There  are  personages  who 
feel  themselves  tragic  because  they  march  into  a 
palpable  morass,  dragging  another  with  them,  and 
then  cry  out  against  all  the  gods.  Deronda's 
mind  was  strongly  set  against  imitating  them. 

"  I  have  my  hands  on  the  reins  now,"  he  thought, 
"  and  I  will  not  drop  them.  I  shall  go  there  as 
little  as  possible." 

He  saw  the  reasons  acting  themselves  out  be- 
fore Mm.  How  could  he  be  Mirah's  guardian  and 
claim  to  unite  with  Mrs.  Meyrick,  to  whose  charge 


he  had  committed  her,  if  he  showed  himself  as  a 
lover — whom  she  did  not  love — whom  she  would 
not  marry  ?  And  if  he  encouraged  any  germ  of 
lover's  feeling  in  himself,  it  would  lead  up  to  that 
issue.  Mirah's  was  not  a  nature  that  would  bear 
dividing  against  itself;  and  even  if  love  won  her 
consent  to  marry  a  man  who  was  not  of  her  race 
and  religion,  she  would  never  be  happy  in  acting 
against  that  strong  native  bias  which  would  stifl 
reign  in  her  conscience  as  remorse. 

Deronda  saw  these  consequences  as  we  see  any 
danger  of  marring  our  own  work  well  begun.  It 
was  a  delight  to  have  rescued  this  child  acquaint- 
ed with  sorrow,  and  to  think  of  having  placed  her 
little  feet  in  protected  paths.  The  creature  we 
help  to  save,  though  only  a  half-reared  linnet, 
bruised  and  lost  by  the  way-side — how  we  watch 
and  fence  it,  and  dote  on  its  signs  of  recovery ! 
Our  pride  becomes  loving,  our  self  is  a  not-self 
for  whose  sake  we  become  virtuous,  when  we  set 
to  some  hidden  work  of  reclaiming  a  life  from 
misery  and  look  for  our  triumph  in  the  secret  joy 
— "  This  one  is  the  better  for  me." 

"  I  would  as  soon  hold  out  my  finger  to  be  bit- 
ten off  as  set  about  spoiling  her  peace,"  said  De- 
ronda. "  It  was  one  of  the  rarest  bits  of  fortune 
that  I  should  have  had  friends  like  the  Meyricks 
to  place  her  with — generous,  delicate  friends  with- 
out any  loftiness  in  their  ways,  so  that  her  depend- 
ence on  them  is  not  only  safety,  but  happiness. 
There  could  be  no  refuge  to  replace  that,  if  it 
were  broken  up.  But  what  is  the  use  of  my  tak- 
ing the  vows  and  settling  every  thing  as  it  should 
be,  if  that  marplot  Hans  comes  and  upsets  it  all  ?" 

Few  things  were  more  likely.  Hans  was  made 
for  mishaps :  his  very  limbs  seemed  more  break- 
able than  other  people's — his  eyes  more  of  a  re- 
sort for  uninvited  flies  and  other  irritating  guests. 
But  it  was  impossible  to  forbid  Hans's  coming  to 
London.  He  was  intending  to  get  a  studio  there 
and  make  it  his  chief  home ;  and  to  propose  that 
he  should  defer  coming  on  some  ostensible  ground, 
concealing  the  real  motive  of  winning  time  for 
Mirah's  position  to  become  more  confirmed  and 
independent,  was  impracticable.  Having  no  oth- 
er resource,  Deronda  tried  to  believe  that  both 
he  and  Mrs.  Meyrick  were  foolishly  troubling 
themselves  about  one  of  those  endless  things 
called  probabilities,  which  never  occur ;  but  he 
did  not  quite  succeed  in  his  trying ;  on  the  con- 
trary,  he  found  himself  going  inwardly  through 
a  scene  where,  on  the  first  discovery  of  Hans's 
inclination,  he  gave  him  a  very  energetic  warning 
— suddenly  checked,  however,  by  the  suspicion 
of  personal  feeling  that  his  warmth  might  be  cre- 
ating in  Hans.  He  could  come  to  no  result,  but 
that  the  position  was  peculiar,  and  that  he  could 
make  no  further  provision  against  dangers  until 
they  came  nearer.  To  save  an  unhappy  Jewess 
from  drowning  herself  would  not  have  seemed  a 
startling  variation  among  police  reports ;  but  to 
discover  in  her  so  rare  a  creature  as  Mirah  was 
an  exceptional  event  which  might  well  bring  ex- 
ceptional consequences.  Deronda  would  not  let 
himself  for  a  moment  dwell  on  any  supposition 
that  the  consequences  might  enter  deeply  into 
his  own  life.  The  image  of  Mirah  had  never  yet 
had  that  penetrating  radiation  which  would  have 
been  given  to  it  by  the  idea  of  her  loving  him. 
When  this  sort  of  effluence  is  absent  from  the 
fancy  (whether  from  the  fact  or  not),  a  man  may 
go  far  in  devotedness  without  perturbation. 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


129 


As  to  the  search  for  Mirah's  mother  and  broth- 
er, Deronda  took  what  she  had  said  to-day  as  a 
warrant  for  deferring  any  immediate  measures. 
His  conscience  was  not  quite  easy  in  this  desire 
for  delay,  any  more  than  it  was  quite  easy  in  his 
not  attempting  to  learn  the  truth  about  his  own 
mother :  in  both  cases  he  felt  that  there  might  be 
an  unfulfilled  duty  to  a  parent,  but  in  both  cases 
there  was  an  overpowering  repugnance  to  the 
possible  truth,  which  threw  a  turning  weight  into 
the  scale  of  argument. 

"  At  least,  I  will  look  about,"  was  his  final  de- 
termination. "  I  may  find  some  special  Jewish 
machinery.  I  will  wait  till  after  Christmas." 

What  should  we  all  do  without  the  calendar, 
when  we  want  to  put  off  a  disagreeable  duty  ?  The 
admirable  arrangements  of  the  solar  system,  by 
which  our  time  is  measured,  always  supply  us 
with  a  term  before  which  it  is  hardly  worth  while 
to  set  about  any  thing  we  are  disinclined  to. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

"  No  man,"  says  a  Rabbi,  by  way  of  indisputable  in- 
stance, "  may  turn  the  bones  of  his  father  and  mother 
into  spoons" — sure  that  his  hearers  felt  the  checks 
against  that  form  of  economy.  The  market  for  spoons 
has  never  expanded  enough  for  any  one  to  say,  "  Why 
not  ?"  and  to  argue  that  human  progress  lies  in  such 
an  application  of  material.  The  only  check  to  be  al- 
leged is  a  sentiment,  which  will  coerce  none  who  do 
not  hold  that  sentiments  are  the  better 'part  of  the 
world's  wealth. 

DERONDA  meanwhile  took  to  a  less  fashionable 
form  of  exercise  than  riding  in  Rotten  Row.  He 
went  often  rambling  in  those  parts  of  London 
which  are  most  inhabited  by  common  Jews :  he 
walked  to  the  synagogues  at  times  of  service,  he 
looked  into  shops,  he  observed  faces — a  process 
not  very  promising  of  particular  discovery.  Why 
did  he  not  address  himself  to  an  influential  Rabbi 
or  other  member  of  a  Jewish  community,  to  con- 
sult on  the  chances  of  finding  a  mother  named 
Cohen,  with  a  son  named  Ezra,  and  a  lost  daughter 
named  Mirah  ?  He  thought  of  doing  so — after 
Christmas.  The  fact  was,  notwithstanding  all  his 
sense  of  poetry  in  common  things,  Deronda,  where 
a  keen  personal  interest  was  aroused,  could  not, 
>  more  than  the  rest  of  us,  continuously  escape  suf- 
fering from  the  pressure  of  that  hard,  unaccom- 
modating Actual,  which  has  never  consulted  our 
taste  and  is  entirely  unselect.  Enthusiasm,  we 
know,  dwells  at  ease  among  ideas,  tolerates  garlic 
breathed  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  sees  no  shabbi- 
ness  in  the  official  trappings  of  classic  proces- 
sions :  it  gets  squeamish  when  ideals  press  upon 
it  as  something  warmly  incarnate,  and  can  hardly 
face  them  without  fainting.  Lying  dreamily  in  a 
boat,  imagining  one's  self  in  quest  of  a  beautiful 
maiden's  relatives  in  Cordova,  elbowed  by  Jews  in 
the  tune  of  Ibn-Gebirol,  all  the  physical  incidents 
can  be  borne  without  shock.  Or  if  the  scenery 
of  St.  Mary  Axe  and  Whitechapel  were  imagina- 
tively transported  to  the  borders  of  the  Rhine  at 
the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  when  in  the  ears 
listening  for  the  signals  of  the  Messiah  the  Hep ! 
Hep !  Hep !  of  the  Crusaders  came  like  the  bay 
of  blood-hounds ;  and  in  the  presence  of  those 
devilish  missionaries  with  sword  and  fire-brand 
the  crouching  figure  of  the  reviled  Jew  turned 
round  erect,  heroic,  flashing  with  sublime  con- 
stancy in  the  face  of  torture  and  death — what 
would  the  dingy  shops  and  unbeautif ul  faces  sig- 


nify to  the  thrill  of  contemplative  emotion  ?  But 
the  fervor  of  sympathy  with  which  we  contem- 
plate a  grandiose  martyrdom  is  feeble  compared 
with  the  enthusiasm  that  keeps  unslacked  where 
there  is  no  danger,  no  challenge — nothing  but 
impartial  mid-day  falling  on  commonplace,  per- 
haps half-repulsive,  objects  which  are  really  the 
beloved  ideas  made  flesh.  Here  undoubtedly  lies 
the  chief  poetic  energy :  in  the  force  of  imagina- 
tion that  pierces  or  exalts  the  solid  fact,  instead  of 
floating  among  cloud-pictures.  To  glory  in  a  pro- 
phetic vision  of  knowledge  covering  the  earth  is 
an  easier  exercise  of  believing  imagination  than 
to  see  its  beginning  in  newspaper  placards  star- 
ing at  you  from  a  bridge  beyond  the  corn  fields ; 
and  it  might  well  happen  to  most  of  us  dainty 
people  that  we  were  in  the  thick  of  the  battle  of 
Armageddon  without  being  aware  of  any  thing 
more  than  the  annoyance  of  a  little  explosive 
smoke  and  struggling  on  the  ground  immediately 
about  us. 

It  lay  in  Deronda's  nature  usually  to  contemn 
the  feeble,  fastidious  sympathy  which  shrinks 
from  the  broad  life  of  mankind ;  but  now,  with 
Mirah  before  him  as  a  living  reality  whose  ex- 
perience he  had  to  care  for,  he  saw  every  common 
Jew  and  Jewess  in  the  light  of  comparison  with 
her,  and  had  a  presentiment  of  the  collision  be- 
tween her  idea  of  the  unknown  mother  and  brother 
and  the  discovered  fact — a  presentiment  all  the 
keener  in  him  because  of  a  suppressed  conscious- 
ness that  a  not  unlike  possibility  of  collision 
might  lie  hidden  in  his  own  lot.  Not  that  he 
would  have  looked  with  more  complacency  of 
expectation  at  wealthy  Jews,  outdoing  the  lords 
of  the  Philistines  in  their  sports ;  but  since  there 
was  no  likelihood  of  Mirah's  friends  being  found 
among  that  class,  their  habits  did  not  immediate- 
ly affect  him.  In  this  mood  he  rambled,  without 
expectation  of  a  more  pregnant  result  than  a  lit- 
tle preparation  of  his  own  mind,  perhaps  for  fu- 
ture theorizing  as  well  as  practice — very  much 
as  if,  Mirah  being  related  to  Welsh  miners,  he 
had  gone  to  look  more  closely  at  the  ways  of 
those  people,  not  without  wishing  at  the  same 
time  to  get  a  little  light  of  detail  on  the  history 
of  Strikes. 

He  really  did  not  long  to  find  any  body  in  par- 
ticular ;  and  when,  as  his  habit  was,  he  looked  at 
the  name  over  a  shop  door,  he  was  well  content 
that  it  was  not  Ezra  Cohen.  I  confess  he  par- 
ticularly desired  that  Ezra  Cohen  should  not  keep 
a  shop.  Wishes  are  held  to  be  ominous ;  accord- 
ing to  which  belief  the  order  of  the  world  is  so 
arranged  that  if  you  have  an  impious  objection 
to  a  squint,  your  offspring  is  the  more  likely  to 
be  born  with  one ;  also,  that  if  you  happened  to 
desire  a  squint,  you  would  not  get  it.  This  de- 
sponding view  of  probability  the  hopeful  entirely, 
reject,  taking  their  wishes  as  good  and  sufficient 
security  for  all  kinds  of  fulfillment.  Who  is  ab- 
solutely neutral  ?  Deronda  happening  one  morn- 
ing to  turn  into  a  little  side  street  out  of  the  noise 
and  obstructions  of  Holborn,  felt  the  scale  dip 
on  the  desponding  side. 

He  was  rather  tired  of  the  streets,  and  had 
paused  to  hail  a  hansom  cab  which  he  saw  com- 
ing, when  his  attention  was  caught  by  some  fine 
old  clasps  in  chased  silver  displayed  in  the  win- 
dow at  his  right  hand.  His  first  thought  was 
that  Lady  Mallinger,  who  had  a  strictly  Protest- 
ant taste  for  such  Catholic  spoils,  might  like  to 


130 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


have  these  missal  clasps  turned  into  a  bracelet ; 
then  his  eyes  traveled  over  the  other  contents  of 
the  window,  and  he  saw  that  the  shop  was  that 
kind  of  pawnbroker's  where  the  lead  is  given  to 
jewelry,  lace,  and  all  equivocal  objects  introduced 
as  bric-d-brac.  A  placard  in  one  corner  announced, 
Watches  and  Jewelry  exchanged  and  repaired.  But 
his  survey  had  been  noticed  from  within,  and  a 
figure  appeared  at  the  door,  looking  round  at 
him  and  saying,  in  a  tone  of  cordial  encourage- 
ment, "  Good-day,  Sir."  The  instant  was  enough 
for  Deronda  to  see  that  the  face,  unmistakably 
Jewish,  belonged  to  a  young  man  about  thirty; 
and  wincing  from  the  shop-keeper's  persuasive- 
ness that  would  probably  follow,  he  had  no  soon- 
er returned  the  "good-day"  than  he  passed  to 
the  other  side  of  the  street  and  beckoned  to  the 
cabman  to  draw  up  there.  From  that  station  he 
saw  the  name  over  the  shop  window — Ezra  CoJien. 

There  might  be  a  hundred  Ezra  Cohens  letter- 
ed above  shop  windows,  but  Deronda  had  not  seen 
them.  Probably  the  young  man  interested  in  a 
possible  customer  was  Ezra  himself ;  and  he  was 
about  the  age  to  be  expected  in  Mirah's  brother, 
who  was  grown  up  while  she  was  still  a  little 
child.  But  Deronda's  first  endeavor  as  he  drove 
homeward  was  to  convince  himself  that  there  was 
not  the  slightest  warrantable  presumption  of  this 
Ezra  being  Mirah's  brother ;  and  next,  that  even 
if,  in  spite  of  good  reasoning,  he  turned  out  to  be 
that  brother,  while  on  inquiry  the  mother  was 
found  to  be  dead,  it  was  not  his — Deronda's — 
duty  to  make  known  the  discovery  to  Mirah.  In 
inconvenient  disturbance  of  this  conclusion  there 
came  his  lately  acquired  knowledge  that  Mirah 
would  have  a  religious  desire  to  know  of  her 
mother's  death,  and  also  to  learn  whether  her 
brother  were  living.  How  far  was  he  justified  in 
determining  another  life  by  his  own  notions? 
Was  it  not  his  secret  complaint  against  the  way 
in  which  others  had  ordered  his  own  life  that  he 
had  not  open  daylight  on  all  its  relations,  so  that 
he  had  not,  like  other  men,  the  full  guidance  of 
primary  duties  ? 

The  Immediate  relief  from  this  inward  debate 
was  the  reflection  that  he  had  not  yet  made  any 
real  discovery,  and  that  by  looking  into  the  facts 
more  closely  he  should  be  certified  that  there 
was  no  demand  on  him  for  any  decision  whatever. 
He  intended  to  return  to  that  shop  as  soon  as  he 
could  conveniently,  and  buy  the  clasps  for  Lady 
Miillinger.  But  he  was  hindered  for  several  days 
by  Sir  Hugo,  who,  about  to  make  an  after-dinner 
speech  on  a  burning  topic,  wanted  Deronda  to 
forage  for  him  on  the  legal  part  of  the  question, 
besides  wasting  time  every  day  on  argument 
which  always  ended  in  a  drawn  battle.  As  on 
many  other  questions,  they  held  different  sides ; 
but  Sir  Hugo  did  not  mind  this,  and  when  Deron- 
da put  his  point  well,  said,  with  a  mixture  of  sat- 
isfaction and  regret : 

**  Confound  it,  Dan !  why  don't  you  make  an 
opportunity  of  saying  these  things  in  public? 
You're  wrong,  you  know.  You  won't  succeed. 
You've  got  the  massive  sentiment,  the  heavy  ar. 
tillery,  of  the  country  against  you.  But  it's  all 
the  better  ground  for  a  young  man  to  display 
himself  on.  When  I  was  your  age,  I  should  have 
taken  it  And  it  would  be  quite  as  well  for  you 
to  be  in  opposition  to  me  here  and  there.  It 
would  throw  you  more  into  relief.  If  you  would 
seize  an  occasion  of  this  sort  to  make  an  impres- 


sion, you  might  be  in  Parliament  in  no  time. 
And  you  know  that  would  gratify  me." 

"  I  am  sorry  not  to  do  what  would  gratify  you, 
Sir,"  said  Deronda.  "But  I  can  not  persuade 
myself  to  look  at  politics  as  a  profession." 

"  Why  not  ?  If  a  man  is  not  born  into  public 
life  by  his  position  in  the  country,  there's  no  way 
for  him  but  to  embrace  it  by  his  own  efforts.  The 
business  of  the  country  must  be  done — her  Maj- 
esty's government  carried  on,  as  the  old  Duke 
said.  And  it  never  could  be,  my  boy,  if  every 
body  looked  at  politics  as  if  they  were  prophecy, 
and  demanded  an  inspired  vocation.  If  you  are 
to  get  into  Parliament,  it  won't  do  to  sit  still 
and  wait  for  a  call  either  from  Heaven  or  con- 
stituents." 

"I  don't  want  to  make  a  living  out  of  opin- 
ions," said  Deronda ;  "  especially  out  of  borrowed 
opinions.  Not  that  I  mean  to  blame  other  men. 
I  dare  say  many  better  fellows  than  I  don't  mind 
getting  on  to  a  platform  to  praise  themselves,  and 
giving  their  word  of  honor  for  a  party." 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  Dan,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  "a 
man  who  sets  his  face  against  every  sort  of  hum- 
bug is  simply  a  three-cornered,  impracticable  fel- 
low. There's  a  bad  style  of  humbug,  but  there 
is  also  a  good  style — one  that  oils  the  wheels  and 
makes  progress  possible.  If  you  are  to  rule  men, 
you  must  rule  them  through  their  own  ideas; 
and  I  agree  with  the  Archbishop  at  Naples  who 
had  a  St.  Januarius  procession  against  the  plague. 
It's  no  use  having  an  Order  in  Council  against 
popular  shallowness.  There  is  no  action  possi- 
ble without  a  little  acting." 

"  One  may  be  obliged  to  give  way  to  an  occa- 
sional necessity,"  said  Deronda.  "  But  it  is  one 
thing  to  say, '  In  this  particular  case  I  am  forced 
to  put  on  this  fool's  cap  and  grin,'  and  another  to 
buy  a  pocket  fool's  cap  and  practice  myself  in  grin- 
ning. I  can't  see  any  real  public  expediency  that 
does  not  keep  an  ideal  before  it  which  makes  a 
limit  of  deviation  from  the  direct  path.  But  if  I 
were  to  set  up  for  a  public  man,  I  might  mistake 
my  own  success  for  public  expediency." 

It  was  after  this  dialogue,  which  was  rather  jar- 
ring to  him,  that  Deronda  set  out  on  his  medita- 
ted second  visit  to  Ezra  Cohen's.  lie  entered  the 
street  at  the  end  opposite  to  the  Holborn  entrance, 
and  an  inward  reluctance  slackened  Ms  pace, 
while  his  thoughts  were  transferring  what  he  had 
just  been  saying  about  public  expediency  to  tlie 
entirely  private  difficulty  which  brought  him  back 
again  into  this  unattractive  thoroughfare.  It 
might  soon  become  an  immediate  practical  ques- 
tion with  him  how  far  he  could  call  it  a  wise  ex- 
pediency to  conceal  the  fact  of  close  kindred. 
Such  questions  turning  up  constantly  in  life  are 
often  decided  in  a  rough  and  ready  way ;  and  to 
many  it  will  appear  an  overrefinement  in  Deron- 
da that  he  should  make  any  great  point  of  a  mat- 
ter confined  to  his  own  knowledge.  But  we  have 
seen  the  reasons  why  he  had  come  to  regard  con- 
cealment as  a  bane  of  life,  and  tho  necessity  of 
concealment  as  a  mark  by  which  lines  of  action 
were  to  bo  avoided.  The  prospect  of  being  urged 
against  the  confirmed  habit  of  his  mind  was  natu- 
rally grating.  Ho  even  paused  here  and  there  be- 
fore the  most  plausible  shop  windows  for  a  gen- 
tleman to  look  into,  half  inclined  to  decide  that 
he  would  not  increase  his  knowledge  about  that 
modern  Ezra,  who  was  certainly  not  a  leader 
among  his  people — a  hesitation  which  proved 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


131 


how,  in  a  man  much  given  to  reasoning,  a  bare 
possibility  may  weigh  more  than  the  best-clad 
likelihood ;  for  Deronda's  reasoning  had  decided 
that  all  likelihood  was  against  this  man's  being 
Mirah's  brother. 

One  of  the  shop  windows  he  paused  before  was 
that  of  a  second-hand  book-shop,  where,  on  a  nar- 
row table  outside,  the  literature  of  the  ages  was 
represented  in  judicious  mixture,  from  the  im- 
mortal verse  of  Homer  to  the  mortal  prose  of  the 
railway  novel.  That  the  mixture  was  judicious 
was  apparent  from  Deronda's  finding  in  it  some- 
thing that  he  wanted,  namely,  that  wonderful  bit 
of  autobiography,  the  life  of  the  Polish  Jew,  Sal- 
omon Maimon,  which,  as  he  could  easily  slip  it 
into  his  pocket,  he  took  from  its  place,  and  en- 
tered the  shop  to  pay  for,  expecting  to  see  behind 
the  counter  a  grimy  personage  showing  that  non- 
cfialance  about  sales  which  seems  to  belong  uni- 
versally to  the  second-hand  book  business.  In 
most  other  trades  you  find  generous  men  who  are 
anxious  to  sell  you  their  wares  for  your  own  wel- 
fare ;  but  even  a  Jew  will  not  urge  Simson's  Euclid 
on  you  with  an  affectionate  assurance  that  you 
will  have  pleasure  in  reading  it,  and  that  he  wish- 
es he  had  twenty  more  of  the  article,  so  much  is 
it  in  request.  One  is  led  to  fear  that  a  second- 
hand bookseller  may  belong  to  that  unhappy  class 
of  men  who  have  no  belief  in  the  good  of  what 
they  get  their  living  by,  yet  keep  conscience  enough 
to  be  morose  rather  than  unctuous  in  their  vocation. 

But  instead  of  the  ordinary  tradesman,  he  saw, 
on  the  dark  background  of  books  in  the  long 
narrow  shop,  a  figure  that  was  somewhat  startling 
in  its  unusualness.  A  man  in  threadbare  clothing, 
whose  age  was  difficult  to  guess — from  the  dead 
yellowish  flatness  of  the  flesh,  something  like  an 
old  ivory  carving — was  seated  on  a  stool  against 
some  book -shelves  that  projected  beyond  the 
short  counter,  doing  nothing  more  remarkable 
than  reading  the  yesterday's  Times ;  but  when 
he  let  the  paper  rest  on  his  lap  and  looked  at  the 
incoming  customer,  the  thought  glanced  through 
Deronda  that  precisely  such  a  physiognomy  as 
that  might  possibly  have  been  seen  in  a  prophet 
of  the  Exile,  or  in  some  New  Hebrew  poet  of  the 
medicEval  time.  It  was  a  finely  typical  Jewish 
face,  wrought  into  intensity  of  expression  appar- 
ently by  a  strenuous  eager  experience  in  which 
all  the  satisfaction  had  been  indirect  and  far  off, 
and  perhaps  by  some  bodily  suffering  also,  which 
involved  that  absence  of  ease  in  the  present.  The 
features  were  clear  cut,  not  large ;  the  brow  not 
high,  but  broad,  and  fully  defined  by  the  crisp 
black  hair.  It  might  never  have  been  a  particu- 
larly handsome  face,  but  it  must  always  have 
been  forcible  ;  and  now  with  its  dark,  far-off  gaze, 
and  yellow  pallor  in  relief  on  the  gloom  of  the 
backward  shop,  one  might  have  imagined  one's 
self  coming  upon  it  in  some  past  prison  of  the 
Inquisition,  which  a  mob  had  suddenly  burst 
open ;  while  the  look  fixed  on  an  incidental  cus- 
tomer seemed  eager  and  questioning  enough  to 
have  been  turned  on  one  who  might  have  been  a 
messenger  either  of  delivery  or  of  death.  The  fig- 
ure was  probably  familiar  and  unexciting  enough 
to  the  inhabitants  of  this  street ;  but  to  Deronda's 
mind  it  brought  so  strange  a  blending  of  the  un- 
wonted with  the  common,  that  there  was  a  per- 
ceptible interval  of  mutual  observation  before 
he  asked  his  question,  "  What  is  the  price  of  this 
book  ?" 


After  taking  the  book  and  examining  the  fly- 
leaves without  rising,  the  supposed  bookseller 
said, "  There  is  no  mark,  and  Mr.  Ram  is  not  in 
now.  I  am  keeping  the  shop  while  he  is  gone  to 
dinner.  What  are  you  disposed  to  give  for  it  ?" 
He  held  the  book  closed  on  his  lap  with  his  hand 
on  it,  and  looked  examiningly  at  Deronda,  over 
whom  there  came  the  disagreeable  idea  that  pos- 
sibly this  striking  personage  wanted  to  see  how 
much  could  be  got  out  of  a  customer's  ignorance 
of  prices.  But  without  further  reflection  he  said, 
"  Don't  you  know  how  much  it  is  worth  ?" 

"Not  its  market  price.  May  I  ask  have  you 
read  it?" 

"No.  I  have  read  an  account  of  it,  which 
makes  me  want  to  buy  it." 

"  You  are  a  man  of  learning — you  are  interest- 
ed in  Jewish  history  ?"  This  was  said  in  a  deep- 
ened tone  of  eager  inquiry. 

"  I  am  certainly  interested  in  Jewish  history," 
said  Deronda,  quietly,  curiosity  overcoming  his 
dislike  to  the  sort  of  inspection  as  well  as  ques- 
tioning he  was  under. 

But  immediately  the  strange  Jew  rose  from  his 
sitting  posture,  and  Deronda  felt  a  thin  hand 
pressing  his  arm  tightly,  while  a  hoarse,  excited 
voice,  not  much  above  a  loud  whisper,  said, 

"  You  are  perhaps  of  our  race  ?" 

Deronda  colored  deeply,  not  liking  the  grasp, 
and  then  answered,  with  a  slight  shake  of  the 
head,  "  No."  The  grasp  was  relaxed,  the  hand 
withdrawn,  the  eagerness  of  the  face  collapsed 
into  uninterested  melancholy,  as  if  some  possess- 
ing spirit  which  had  leaped  into  the  eyes  and  gest- 
ures had  sunk  back  again  to  the  inmost  recesses 
of  the  frame ;  and  moving  further  off  as  he  held 
out  the  little  book,  the  stranger  said,  in  a  tone  of 
distant  civility,  "  I  believe  Mr.  Ram  will  be  satis- 
fied with  half  a  crown,  Sir." 

The  effect  of  this  change  on  Deronda — he  aft- 
erward smiled  when  he  recalled  it — was  oddly 
embarrassing  and  humiliating,  as  if  some  high 
dignitary  had  found  him  deficient  and  given  him 
his  conge.  There  was  nothing  further  to  be  said, 
however  :  he  paid  his  half  crown  and  carried  off 
his  Salomon  Maimon^s  Lebejisgeschicfite  with  a  mere 
"  good-morning." 

He  felt  some  vexation  at  the  sudden  arrest  of 
the  interview,  and  the  apparent  prohibition  that 
he  should  know  more  of  this  man,  who  was  cer- 
tainly something  out  of  the  common  way — as  dif- 
ferent probably  as  a  Jew  could  well  be  from  Ezra 
Cohen,  through  whose  door  Deronda  was  pres- 
ently entering,  and  whose  flourishing  face  glist- 
ening on  the  way  to  fatness  was  hanging  over  the 
counter  in  negotiation  with  some  one  on  the  oth- 
er side  of  the  partition,  concerning  two  plated 
stoppers  and  three  tea-spoons,  which  lay  spread 
before  him.  Seeing  Deronda  enter,  he  called  out, 
"Mother!  mother!"  and  then,  with  a  familiar 
nod  and  smile,  said,  "  Coming,  Sir — coming  di- 
rectly." 

Deronda  could  not  help  looking  toward  the  door 
from  the  back  with  some  anxiety,  which  was  not 
soothed  when  he  saw  a  vigorous  woman  beyond 
fifty  enter,  and  approach  to  serve  him.  Not  that 
there  was  any  thing  very  repulsive  about  her :  the 
worst  that  could  be  said  was  that  she  had  that 
look  of  having  made  her  toilet  with  little  water, 
and  by  twilight,  which  is  common  to  unyouthful 
people  of  her  class,  and  of  having  presumably 
slept  in  her  large  ear-rings,  if  not  in  her  rings  and 


182 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


necklace.  In  fact,  what  caused  a  sinking  of  heart 
in  Deronda  was  her  not  being  so  coarse  and  ugly 
as  to  exclude  the  idea  of  her  being  Mirah's  mother. 
Any  one  who  has  looked  at  a  face  to  try  and  dis- 
cern signs  of  known  kinship  in  it  will  understand 
his  process  of  conjecture — how  he  tried  to  think 
away  the  fat  which  had  gradually  disguised  the 
outlines  of  youth,  and  to  discern  what  one  may 
call  the  elementary  expressions  of  the  face.  He 
was  sorry  to  see  no  absolute  negative  to  his  fears. 
Just  as  it  was  conceivable  that  this  Ezra,  brought 
up  to  trade,  might  resemble  the  scape-grace  father 
in  every  thing  but  his  knowledge  and  talent,  so  it 
was  not  impossible  that  his  mother  might  have 
had  a  lovely  refined  daughter  whose  type  of  feature 
and  expression  was  like  Mirah's.  The  eyebrows 
had  a  vexatious  similarity  of  line ;  and  who  shall 
decide  how  far  a  face  may  be  masked  when  the 
uncherishing  years  have  thrust  it  far  onward  in 
the  ever-new  procession  of  youth  and  age  ?  The 
good  humor  of  the  glance  remained  and  shone 
out  in  a  motherly  way  at  Deronda,  as  she  said,  in 
a  mild  guttural  tone, 

"  How  can  I  serve  you,  Sir  ?" 

"  I  should  like  to  look  at  the  silver  clasps  in  the 
window,"  said  Deronda ;  "  the  larger  ones,  please, 
in  the  corner  there." 

They  were  not  quite  easy  to  get  at  from  the 
mother's  station,  and  the  son,  seeing  this,  called 
out,  "  I'll  reach  'em,  mother ;  I'll  reach  'em,"  run- 
ning forward  with  alacrity,  and  then  handing  the 
clasps  to  Deronda  with  the  smiling  remark, 

"  Mother's  too  proud :  she  wants  to  do  every 
thing  herself.  That's  why  I  called  her  to  wait  on 
you,  Sir.  When  there's  a  particular  gentleman 
customer,  Sir,  I  daredn't  do  any  other  than  call 
her.  But  I  can't  let  her  do  herself  a  mischief 
with  stretching." 

Here  Mr.  Cohen  made  way  again  for  his  parent, 
who  gave  a  little  guttural  amiable  laugh  while  she 
looked  at  Deronda,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  This  boy 
will  be  at  his  jokes,  but  you  see  he's  the  best  son 
in  the  world;"  and  evidently  the  son  enjoyed 
pleasing  her,  though  he  also  wished  to  convey  an 
apology  to  his  distinguished  customer  for  not 
giving  him  the  advantage  of  his  own  exclusive 
attention. 

Deronda  began  to  examine  the  clasps  as  if  he 
had  many  points  to  observe  before  he  could  come 
to  a  decision. 

"  They  are  only  three  guineas,  Sir,"  said  the 
mother,  encouragingly. 

"  First-rate  workmanship,  Sir — worth  twice  the 
money ;  only  I  got  'em  a  bargain  from  Cologne," 
said  the  son,  parenthetically,  from  a  distance. 

Meanwhile  two  new  customers  entered,  and  the 
repeated  call,  "  Addy !"  brought  from  the  back  of 
the  shop  a  group  that  Deronda  turned  frankly  to 
stare  at,  feeling  sure  that  the  stare  would  be  held 
complimentary.  The  group  consisted  of  a  black- 
eyed  young  woman  who  carried  a  black-eyed  little 
one,  its  head  already  well  covered  with  black  curls, 
and  deposited  it  on  the  counter,  from  which  sta- 
tion it  looked  round  with  eren  more  than  the 
usual  intelligence  of  babies ;  also  a  robust  boy  of 
six  and  a  younger  girl,  both  with  black  eyes  and 
black-ringed  hair — looking  more  Semitic  than 
their  parents,  as  the  puppy  lions  show  the  spots 
of  far-off  progenitors.  The  young  woman  answer- 
ing to  "  Addy"— a  sort  of  paroquet  in  a  bright 
blue  dress,  with  coral  necklace  and  ear-rings,  her 
hair  set  up  in  a  huge  bush — looked  as  compla- 


cently lively  and  unrefined  as  her  husband ;  and 
by  a  certain  difference  from  the  mother  deepened 
in  Deronda  the  unwelcome  impression  that  the 
latter  was  not  so  utterly  common  a  Jewess  as  to 
exclude  her  being  the  mother  of  Mirah.  While 
that  thought  was  glancing  through  his  mind,  the 
boy  had  ran  forward  into  the  shop  with  an  ener- 
getic stamp,  and  setting  himself  about  four  feet 
from  Deronda,  with  his  hands  in  the  pockets  of 
his  miniature  knickerbockers,  looked  at  him  with 
a  precocious  air  of  survey.  Perhaps  it  was  chief- 
ly with  a  diplomatic  design  to  linger  and  ingra- 
tiate himself  that  Deronda  patted  the  boy's  head, 


"  What  is  your  name,  sirrah  ?" 

"  Jacob  Alexander  Cohen,"  said  the  small  man, 
with  much  ease  and  distinctness. 

"  You  are  not  named  after  your  father,  then  ?" 

"  No ;  after  my  grandfather.  He  sells  knives 
and  razors  and  scissors — my  grandfather  does," 
said  Jacob,  wishing  to  impress  the  stranger  with 
that  high  connection.  "  He  gave  me  this  knife." 
Here  a  pocket-knife  was  drawn  forth,  and  the 
small  fingers,  both  naturally  and  artificially  dark, 
opened  two  blades  and  a  corkscrew  with  much 
quickness. 

"  Is  not  that  a  dangerous  plaything  ?"  said  De- 
ronda, turning  to  the  grandmother. 

".He'll  never  hurt  himself,  bless  you!"  said 
she,  contemplating  her  grandson  with  placid  rap- 
ture. 

"  Have  you  got  a  knife  ?"  says  Jacob,  coming 
closer.  His  small  voice  was  hoarse  in  its  glib- 
ness,  as  if  it  belonged  to  an  aged  commercial  soul, 
fatigued  with  bargaining  through  many  genera- 
tions. 

"  Yes.  Do  you  want  to  see  it  ?"  said  Deron- 
da, taking  a  small  penknife  from  his  waistcoat 
pocket. 

Jacob  seized  it  immediately  and  retreated  a 
little,  holding  the  two  knives  in  his  palms,  and 
bending  over  them  in  meditative  comparison.  By 
this  time  the  other  clients  were  gone,  and  the 
whole  family  had  gathered  to  the  spot,  centring 
their  attention  on  the  marvelous  Jacob :  the  fa- 
ther, mother,  and  grandmother  behind  the  coun- 
ter, with  baby  held  staggering  thereon,  and  the 
little  girl  in  front  leaning  at  her  brother's  elbow 
to  assist  him  in  looking  at  the  knives. 

"  Mine's  the  best,"  said  Jacob  at  last,  return- 
ing Deronda's  knife,  as  if  he  had  been  entertain- 
ing the  idea  of  exchange  and  had  rejected  it. 

Father  and  mother  laughed  aloud  with  delight. 
"  You  won't  find  Jacob  choosing  the  worst,"  said 
Mr.  Cohen,  winking,  with  much  confidence  in  the 
customer's  admiration.  Deronda,  looking  at  the 
grandmother,  who  had  only  an  inward  silent 
laugh,  said, 

"  Are  these  the  only  grandchildren  you  have  ?" 

"  All.  This  is  my  only  son,"  she  answered,  in 
a  communicative  tone,  Deronda's  glance  and  man- 
ner as  usual  conveying  the  impression  of  sympa- 
thetic interest — which  on  this  occasion  answered 
his  purpose  well.  It  seemed  to  como  naturally 
enough  that  he  should  say, 

"  And  you  have  no  daughter  ?" 

There  was  an  instantaneous  change  in  the 
mother's  face.  Her  lips  closed  more  firmly,  she 
looked  down,  swept  her  hands  outward  on  the 
counter,  and  finally  turned  her  back  on  Deronda 
to  examine  some  Indian  handkerchiefs  that  hung 
in  pawn  behind  her.  Her  son  gave  a  significant 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


133 


glance,  set  up  his  shoulders  an  instant,  and  just 
put  his  finger  to  his  lips — then  said,  quickly,  "  I 
think  you're  a  first-rate  gentleman  in  the  city,  Sir, 
if  I  may  be  allowed  to  guess  ?" 

"  Xo,"  said  Deronda,  with  a  preoccupied  air, 
"  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  city." 

"  That's  a  bad  job.  I  thought  you  might  be 
the  young  principal  of  a  first-rate  firm,"  said  Mr. 
Cohen,  wishing  to  make  amends  for  the  check 
on  his  customer's  natural  desire  to  know  more  of 


him  and  his. 
I  see." 


;  But  you  understand  silver-work, 


"  A  little,"  said  Deronda,  taking  up  the  clasps 
a  moment  and  laying  them  down  again.  That 
unwelcome  bit  of  circumstantial  evidence  had 
made  his  mind  busy  with  a  plan  which  was  cer- 
tainly more  like  acting  than  any  thing  he  had 
been  aware  of  in  his  own  conduct  before.  But 
the  bare  possibility  that  more  knowledge  might 
nullify  the  evidence  now  overpowered  the  incli- 
nation to  rest  in  uncertainty. 

'  To  tell  you  the  truth,"  he  went  on, "  my  errand 


at  your  diamond.    You're  perhaps  from  the  West 
End — a  longish  drive  ?" 

"  Yes ;  and  your  Sabbath  begins  early  at  this 
season.  I  could  be  here  by  five — will  that  do  ?" 
Deronda  had  not  been  without  hope  that  by  ask- 
ing to  come  on  a  Friday  evening  he  might  get 
a  better  opportunity  of  observing  points  in  the 
family  character,  and  might  even  be  able  to  put 
some  decisive  question. 

Cohen  assented ;  but  here  the  marvelous  Jacob, 
whose  physique  supported  a  precocity  that  would 
have  shattered  a  Gentile  of  his  years,  showed  that 
he  had  been  listening  with  much  comprehension 
by  saying,  "You  are  coming  again.  Have  you 
got  any  more  knives  at  home  ?" 

"I  think  I  have  one,"  said  Deronda,  smiling 
down  at  him. 

"  Has  it  two  blades  and  a  hook— and  a  white 
handle  like  that  ?"  said  Jacob,  pointing  to  the 
waistcoat  pocket. 

"  I  dare  say  it  has." 
'Do  you  like  a  corkscrew?"  said  Jacob,  ex- 


is  not  so  much  to  buy  as  to  borrow.  I  dare  say  you  •  hibiting  that  article  in  his  own  knife  again,  and 
go  into  rather  heavy  transactions  occasionally."  '  looking  up  with  serious  inquiry. 

"  Well,  Sir,  I've  accommodated  gentlemen  of  j  "  Yes,"  said  Deronda,  experimentally, 
distinction— I'm  proud  to  say  it.  I  wouldn't)  "  Bring  your  knife,  then,  and  we'll  sh  wop,"  said 
exchange  my  business  with  any  in  the  world.  !  Jacob,  returning  the  knife  to  his  pocket,  and 
There's  none  more  honorable,  nor  more  charita- '  stamping  about  with  the  sense  that  he  had  con- 
ble,  nor  more  necessary  for  all  classes,  from  the  '  eluded  a  good  transaction, 
good  lady  who  wants  a  little  of  the  ready  for  the  The  grandmother  had  now  recovered  her  usual 
baker,  to  a  gentleman  like  yourself,  Sir,  who  may  >  manners,  and  the  whole  family  watched  Deronda 
want  it  for  amusement.  I  like  my  business,  I  radiantly  when  he  caressingly  lifted  the  little  girl, 
like  my  street,  and  I  like  my  shop.  I  wouldn't !  to  whom  he  had  not  hitherto  given  attention,  and 
have  it  a  door  further  down.  And  I  wouldn't  be  j  seating  her  on  the  counter,  asked  for  her  name 
without  a  pawn  shop,  Sir,  to  be  the  Lord  Mayor.  I  also.  She  looked  at  him  in  silence,  and  put  her 
It  puts  you  in  connection  with  the  world  at  large.  ;  fingers  to  her  gold  ear-rings,  which  he  did  not 
I  say  it's  like  the  government  revenue — it  em-  j  seem  to  have  noticed. 

braces  the  brass  as  well  as  the  gold  of  the  coun-  "  Adelaide  Rebekah  is  her  name,"  said  her 
try.  -And  a  man  who  doesn't  get  money,  Sir,  can't '  mother,  proudly.  "  Speak  to  the  gentleman, 
accommodate.  Now  what  can  I  do  for  you,  Sir  ?" 

If  an  amiable  self-satisfaction  is  the  mark  of 
earthly  bliss,  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  n  piti- 


"  Shlav'm  Shabbes  fyock  on,"  said  Adelaide 
Rebekah. 


able  mortal  compared  with  Mr.  Cohen — clearly  j  "  Her  Sabbath  frock,  she  means,"  said  the  fa- 
one  of 'those  persons  who,  being  in  excellent  spir-  ther,  in  explanation.  "  She'll  have  her  Sabbath 
its  about  themselves,  are  willing  to  cheer  stran-  frock  on  this  evening." 

gers  by  letting  them  know  it.  While  he  was  de-  "  And  will  you  let  me  see  you  in  it,  Adelaide  ?" 
livering  himself  with  lively  rapidity,  he  took  the  !  said  Deronda,  with  that  gentle  intonation  which 
baby  from  his  wife,  and  holding  it  on  his  arm,  [  came  very  easily  to  him. 

presented  his  features  to  be  explored  by  its  small  |  "  Say  yes,  lovey — yes,  if  you  please,  Sir,"  said 
fists.  Deronda,  not  in  a  cheerful  mood,  was  rash-  •  her  mother,  enchanted  with  this  handsome  young 
ly  pronouncing  this  Ezra  Cohen  to  be  the  most  f  gentleman,  who  appreciated  remarkable  children, 
unpoetic  Jew  he  had  ever  met  with  in  books  or  j  "  And  will  you  give  me  a  kiss  this  evening  ?" 
life :  his  phraseology  was  as  little  as  possible  like  said  Deronda,  with  a  hand  on  each  of  her  little 
that  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  no  shadow  of  a  !  brown  shoulders. 


Suffering  Race  distinguished  his  vulgarity  of  soul 
from  that  of  a  prosperous  pink-and-white  huck- 
ster of  the  purest  English  lineage.  It  is  natural- 
ly a  Christian  feeling  that  a  Jew  ought  not  to  be 


Adelaide  Rebekah  (her  miniature  crinoline  and 
monumental  features  corresponded  with  the  com- 
bination of  her  names)  immediately  put  up  her 
lips  to  pay  the  kiss  in  advance ;  whereupon  her 


conceited.  However,  this  was  no  reason  for  not  father,  rising  into  still  more  glowing  satisfaction 
persevering  in  his  project,  and  he  answered  at  with  the  general  meritoriousness  of  his  circum- 
once,  in  adventurous  ignorance  of  technicalities :  \  stances,  and  with  the  stranger  who  was  an  ad- 

"  I  have  a  fine  diamond  ring  to  offer  as  secur- !  miring  witness,  said,  cordially : 
ity — not  with  me  at  this  moment,  unfortunately,  j      "  You  see  there's  somebody  will  be  disappoint- 
f  or  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  wearing  it.     But  I  '  ed  if  you  don't  come  this  evening,  Sir.    You  won't 
will  come  again  this  evening  and  bring  it  with  j  mind  sitting  down  in  our  family  place  and  waiting 
me.     Fifty  pounds  at  once  would  be  a  conven-   a  bit  for  me,  if  I'm  not  in  when  you  come,  Sir  ? 


"  Well,  you  know,  this  evening  is  the  Sabbath, 
young  gentleman,"  said  Cohen,  "  and  I  go  to  the 
S/iool.  The  shop  will  be  closed.  But  accommo- 


I'll  stretch  a  point  to  accommodate  a  gent  of  your 
sort.  Bring  the  diamond,  and  I'll  see  what  I  can 
do  for  you." 

Deronda  thus  left  the  most  favorable  impres- 


dation  is  a  work  of  charity ;  if  you  can't  get  here    sion  behind  him  as  a  preparation  for  more  easy 
before,  and  are  any  ways  pressed,  why,  I'll  look  :  intercourse.     But,  for  his  own  part,  those  ameni- 


134 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


ties  had  been  carried  on  under  the  heaviest  spirits. 
If  these  were  really  Mirah's  relatives,  he  could  not 
imagine  that  even  her  fervid  filial  piety  could  give 
the  reunion  with  them  any  sweetness  beyond  such 
as  could  be  found  in  the  strict  fulfillment  of  a 
painful  duty.  What  did  this  vaunting  brother 
need  ?  And  with  the  most  favorable  supposition 
about  the  hypothetic  mother,  Deronda  shrank 
from  the  image  of  a  first  meeting  between  her 
and  Mirah,  and  still  more  from  the  idea  of  Mirah's 
domestication  with  this  family.  He  took  refuge 
in  disbelief.  To  find  an  Ezra  Cohen  when  the 
name  was  running  in  your  head  was  no  more  ex- 
traordinary than  to  find  a  Josiah  Smith  under  like 
circumstances ;  and  as  to  the  coincidence  about 
the  daughter,  it  would  probably  turn  out  to  be  a 
difference.  If,  however,  further  knowledge  con- 
firmed the  more  undesirable  conclusion,  what 
would  be  wise  expediency  ? — to  try  and  determine 
the  best  consequences  by  concealment,  or  to  brave 
other  consequences  for  the  sake  of  that  openness 
which  is  the  sweet  fresh  air  of  our  moral  life  ? 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

"  Er  1st  geheissen 
Israel.    Ihn  hat  verwandelt 
Ilexensprnch  in  einen  Hund. 


Abcr  jeden  Freltag  Abend, 
In  der  Diimm'rungstunde,  plotzllch 
Weicht  der  Zanber,  und  der  Hund 
Wird  aufs  Neu'  ein  menschlich  Wesen." 

HEINE  :  Prinzes/tin  Sabbath. 

WHEN  Deronda  arrived  at  five  o'clock  the  shop 
was  closed,  and  the  door  was  opened  for  him  by 
the  Christian  servant.  When  she  showed  him 
into  the  room  behind  the  shop,  he  was  surprised 
at  the  prettiness  of  the  scene.  The  house  was 
old,  and  rather  extensive  at  the  back :  probably 
the  large  room  he  now  entered  was  gloomy  by 
daylight,  but  now  it  was  agreeably  lit  by  a  fine 
old  brass  lamp  with  seven  oil  lights  hanging  above 
the  snow-white  cloth  spread  on  the  central  table. 
The  ceiling  and  walls  were  smoky,  and  all  the  sur- 
roundings were  dark  enough  to  throw  into  relief 
the  human  figures,  which  had  a  Venetian  glow  of 
coloring.  The  grandmother  was  arrayed  in  yel- 
lowish-brown, with  a  large  gold  chain  in  lieu  of 
the  necklace,  and  by  this  light  her  yellow  face 
with  its  darkly  marked  eyebrows  and  framing 
r&uleau  of  gray  hair  looked  as  handsome  as  was 
necessary  for  picturesque  effect.  Young  Mrs. 
Cohen  was  clad  in  red  and  black,  with  a  string 
of  large  artificial  pearls  wound  round  and  round 
her  neck ;  the  baby  lay  asleep  in  the  cradle  un- 
der a  scarlet  counterpane ;  Adelaide  Rebekah  was 
in  braided  amber;  and  Jacob  Alexander  was  in 
black  velveteen  with  scarlet  stockings.  As  the 
four  pairs  of  black  eyes  all  glistened  a  welcome 
at  Deronda,  he  was  almost  ashamed  of  the  super- 
cilious dislike  these  happy-looking  creatures  had 
raised  in  him  by  daylight.  Nothing  could  be  more 
cordial  than  the  greeting  he  received,  and  both 
mother  and  grandmother  seemed  to  gather  more 
dignity  from  being  seen  on  the  private  hearth, 
showing  hospitality.  He  looked  round  with  some 
wonder  at  the  old  furniture :  the  oaken  bureau 
and  high  side  table  must  surely  be  mere  matters 
of  chance  and  economy,  and  not  due  to  the  fam- 
ily taste.  A  large  dish  of  blue-and-yellow  ware 
was  set  up  on  the  side  table,  and  flanking  it  were 


two  old  silver  vessels ;  in  front  of  them  a  large 
volume  in  darkened  vellum  with  a  deep-ribbed 
back.  In  the  corner  at  the  farther  end  was  an 
open  door  into  an  inner  room,  where  there  was 
also  a  light. 

Deronda  took  in  these  details  by  parenthetic 
glances  while  he  met  Jacob's  pressing  solicitude 
about  the  knife.  He  had  taken  the  pains  to  buy 
one  with  the  requisites  of  the  hook  and  white 
handle,  and  produced  it  on  demand,  saying, 

"  Is  that  the  sort  of  thing  you  want,  Jacob  ?" 

It  was  subjected  to  a  severe  scrutiny ;  the  hook 
and  blades  were  opened,  and  the  article  of  barter 
with  the  corkscrew  was  drawn  forth  for  com- 
parison. 

"  Why  do  you  like  a  hook  better  than  a  cork- 
screw ?"  said  Deronda. 

"  'Caush  I  can  get  hold  of  things  with  a  hook. 
A  corkscrew  won't  go  into  any  thing  but  corks. 
But  it's  better  for  you — you  can  draw  corks." 

"  You  agree  to  change,  then  ?"  said  Deronda, 
observing  that  the  grandmother  was  listening 
with  delight. 

"  What  else  have  you  got  in  your  pockets  ?" 
said  Jacob,  with  deliberative  seriousness. 

"Hush,  hush,  Jacob  love,"  said  the  grand- 
mother. And  Deronda,  mindful  of  discipline,  an- 
swered, 

"  I  think  I  must  not  tell  you  that.  Our  busi- 
ness was  with  the  knives." 

Jacob  looked  up  into  his  face  scanningly  for  a 
moment  or  two,  and  apparently  arriving  at  his 
conclusions,  said,  gravely, 

"  I'll  shwop,"  handing  the  corkscrew  knife  to 
Deronda,  who  pocketed  it  with  corresponding 
gravity. 

Immediately  the  small  son  of  Shem  ran  off  into 
the  next  room,  whence  his  voice  was  heard  in 
rapid  chat ;  and  then  ran  back  again — when,  see- 
ing his  father  enter,  he  seized  a  little  velveteen 
hat  which  lay  on  a  chair  and  put  it  on  to  approach 
him.  Cohen  kept  on  his  own  hat,  and  took  no 
notice  of  the  visitor,  but  stood  still  while  the  two 
children  went  up  to  him  and  clasped  his  knees : 
then  he  laid  his  hands  on  each  in  turn  and  ut- 
tered his  Hebrew  benediction ;  whereupon  the 
wife,  who  had  lately  taken  baby  from  the  cradle, 
brought  it  up  to  her  husband  and  held  it  under 
his  outstretched  hands,  to  be  blessed  in  its  sleep. 
For  the  moment  Deronda  thought  that  this  pawn- 
broker, proud  of  his  vocation,  was  not  utterly 
prosaic. 

"Well,  Sir,  you  found  your  welcome  in  my 
family,  I  think,"  said  Cohen,  putting  down  his 
hat,  and  becoming  his  former  self.  "  And  you've 
been  punctual.  Nothing  like  a  little  stress  here," 
he  added,  tapping  his  side  pocket  as  he  sat  down. 
"It's  good  for  us  all  in  our  turn.  I've  felt  it 
when  I've  had  to  make  up  pajTnents.  I  began 
early — had  to  turn  myself  about,  and  put  myself 
into  shapes  to  fit  every  sort  of  box.  It's  bracing 
to  the  mind.  Now,  then !  let  us  see,  let  us  see." 

1  That  is  the  ring  I  spoke  of,"  said  Deronda, 
taking  it  from  his  finger.  "I  believe  it  cost  a 
hundred  pounds.  It  will  be  a  sufficient  pledge  to 
you  for  fifty,  I  think.  I  shall  probably  redeem  it 
in  a  month  or  so." 

Cohen's  glistening  eyes  seemed  to  get  a  little 
nearer  together  as  he  met  the  ingenuous  look  of 
this  crude  young  gentleman,  who  apparently  sup- 
posed that  redemption  was  a  satisfaction  to  pawn- 
brokers. He  took  the  ring,  examined  and  return- 


BOOK  IV.— GWENDOLEN  GETS  HER  CHOICE. 


135 


ed  it,  saying,  with  indifference,  "Good,  good. 
We'll  talk  of  it  after  our  meal.  Perhaps  you'll 
join  us,  if  you've  no  objection.  Me  and  my 
wife  'II  feel  honored,  and  so  will  mother ;  won't 
you,  mother  ?" 

The  invitation  was  doubly  echoed,  and  Deronda 
gladly  accepted  it.  All  now  turned  and  stood 
round  the  table.  No  dish  was  at  present  seen 
except  one  covered  with  a  napkin ;  and  Mrs.  Co- 
hen had  placed  a  china  bowl  near  her  husband 
that  he  might  wash  his  hands  in  it.  But  after 
putting  on  his  hat  again,  he  paused,  and  called 
in  a  loud  voice,  "  Mordecai !" 

Can  this  be  part  of  the  religious  ceremony? 
thought  Deronda,  not  knowing  what  might  be 
expected  of  the  ancient  hero.  But  he  heard  a 
"  Yes"  from  the  next  room,  which  made  him  look 
toward  the  open  door ;  and  there,  to  his  astonish- 
ment, he  saw  the  figure  of  the  enigmatic  Jew 
whom  he  had  this  morning  met  with  in  the  book- 
shop. Their  eyes  met,  and  Mordecai  looked  as 
much  surprised  as  Deronda — neither  in  his  sur- 
prise making  any  sign  of  recognition.  But  when 
Mordecai  was  seating  himself  at  the  end  of  the 
table,  he  just  bent  his  head  to  the  guest  in  a  cold 
and  distant  manner,  as  if  the  disappointment  of 
the  morning  remained  a  disagreeable  association 
with  this  new  acquaintance. 

Cohen  now  washed  his  hands,  pronouncing 
Hebrew  words  the  while  :  afterward,  he  took  off 
the  napkin  covering  the  dish  and  disclosed  the 
two  long  flat  loaves  besprinkled  with  seed — the 
memorial  of  the  manna  that  fed  the  wandering 
forefathers — and  breaking  off  small  pieces  gave 
one  to  each  of  the  family,  including  Adelaide 
Rebekah,  who  stood  on  the  chair  with  her  whole 
length  exhibited  in  her  amber-colored  garment, 
her  little  Jewish  nose  lengthened  by  compression 
of  the  lip  in  the  effort  to  make  a  suitable  appear- 
ance. Cohen  then  began  another  Hebrew  blessing, 
in  which  Jacob  put  on  his  hat  to  join  with  close 
imitation.  After  that  the  heads  were  uncovered, 
all  seated  themselves,  and  the  meal  went  on  with- 
out any  peculiarity  that  interested  Deronda.  He 
was  not  very  conscious  of  what  dishes  he  ate 
from,  being  preoccupied  with  a  desire  to  turn  the 
conversation  in  a  way  that  would  enable  him  to 
ask  some  leading  question ;  and  also  with  thinking 
of  Mordecai,  between  whom  and  himself  there  was 
an  exchange  of  fascinated,  half-furtive  glances. 
Mordecai  had  no  handsome  Sabbath  garment,  but 
instead  of  the  threadbare  rusty  black  coat  of  the 
morning  he  wore  one  of  light  drab,  which  looked 
as  if  it  had  once  been  a  handsome  loose  paletot 
now  shrunk  with  washing;  and  this  change  of 
clothing  gave  a  still  stronger  accentuation  to  his 
dark-haired,  eager  face,  which  might  have  belong- 
ed to  the  prophet  Ezekiel — also  probably  not  mod- 
ish in  the  eyes  of  contemporaries.  It  was  no- 
ticeable that  the  thin  tails  of  the  fried  fish  were 
given  to  Mordecai;  and  in  general  the  sort  of 
share  assigned  to  a  poor  relation — no  doubt  a 
"  survival"  of  prehistoric  practice,  not  yet  general- 
ly admitted  to  be  superstitious. 

Mr.  Cohen  kept  up  the  conversation  with  much 
liveliness,  introducing  as  subjects  always  in  taste 
(the  Jew  is  proud  of  his  loyalty)  the  Queen  and 
the  Royal  Family,  the  Emperor  and  Empress  of 
the  French — into  which  both  grandmother  and 
wife  entered  with  zest.  Mrs.  Cohen  the  younger 
showed  an  accurate  memory  of  distinguished 
birthdays ;  and  the  elder  assisted  her  son.  in  in- 


forming the  guest  of  what  occurred  when  the  Em- 
peror and  Empress  were  in  England  and  visited 
the  city,  ten  years  before. 

"  I  dare  say  you  know  all  about  it  better  than 
we  do,  Sir,"  said  Cohen,  repeatedly,  by  way  of 
preface  to  full  information ;  and  the  interesting 
statements  were  kept  up  in  a  trio. 

"Our  baby  is  named  Jfagenie  Esther,"  said 
young  Mrs.  Cohen,  vivaciously. 

"  It's  wonderful  how  the  Emperor's  like  a  cous- 
in of  mine  in  the  face,"  said  the  grandmother ; 
"  it  struck  me  like  lightning  when  I  caught  sight 
of  him.  I  couldn't  have  thought  it." 

"  Mother  and  me  went  to  see  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  at  the  Crystal  Palace,"  said  Mr.  Cohen. 
"  I  had  a  fine  piece  of  work  to  take  care  of  moth- 
er; she  might  have  been  squeezed  flat — though 
she  was  pretty  near  as  lusty  then  as  she  is  now. 
I  said,  if  I  had  a  hundred  mothers  I'd  never  take 
one  of  'em  to  see  the  Emperor  and  Empress  at 
the  Crystal  Palace  again ;  and  you  may  think  a 
man  can't  afford  it  when  he's  got  but  one  mother 
— not  if  he'd  ever  so  big  an  insurance  on  her." 
He  stroked  his  mother's  shoulder  affectionately, 
and  chuckled  a  little  at  his  own  humor. 

"  Your  mother  has  been  a  widow  a  long  while, 
perhaps,"  said  Deronda,  seizing  his  opportunity. 
"That  has  made  your  care  for  her  the  more 
needful." 

"  Ay,  ay,  it's  a  good  many  yvre-zeit  since  I  had 
to  manage  for  her  and  myself,"  said  Cohen,  quick- 
ly. "  I  went  early  to  it  It's  that  makes  you  a 
sharp  knife." 

"  What  does — what  makes  a  sharp  knife,  fa- 
ther?" said  Jacob,  his  cheek  very  much  swollen 
with  sweet-cake. 

The  father  winked  at  his  guest  and  said,  "  Hav- 
ing your  nose  put  on  the  grindstone." 

Jacob  slipped  from  his  chair  with  the  piece  of 
sweet-cake  in  his  hand,  and  going  close  up  to 
Mordecai,  who  had  been  totally  silent  hitherto, 
said,  "  What  does  that  mean — putting  my  nose  to 
the  grindstone  ?" 

"It  means  that  you  are  to  bear  being  hurt 
without  making  a  noise,"  said  Mordecai,  turning 
his  eyes  benignantly  on  the  small  face  close  to 
his.  Jacob  put  the  corner  of  the  cake  into  Mor- 
decai's  mouth  as  an  invitation  to  bite,  saying, 
meanwhile,  "  I  sha'n't,  though,"  and  keeping  his 
eyes  on  the  cake  to  observe  how  much  of  it 
went  in  this  act  of  generosity.  Mordecai  took 
a  bite  and  smiled,  evidently  meaning  to  please 
the  lad,  and  the  little  incident  made  them  both 
look  more  lovable.  Deronda,  however,  felt  with 
some  vexation  that  he  had  taken  little  by  his 
question. 

"  I  fancy  that  is  the  right  quarter  for  learning," 
said  he,  carrying  on  the  subject  that  he  might 
have  an  excuse  for  addressing  Mordecai,  to  whom 
he  turned  and  said,  "  You  have  been  a  great  stu- 
dent, I  imagine." 

"  I  have  studied,"  was  the  quiet  answer.  "  And 
you  ? — you  know  German,  by  the  book  you  were 
buying." 

"  Yes,  I  have  studied  in  Germany.  Are  you 
generally  engaged  in  book-selling  ?"  said  Deronda. 

"  No ;  I  only  go  to  Mr.  Ram's  shop  every  day 
to  keep  it  while  he  goes  to  meals,"  said  Morde- 
cai, who  was  now  looking  at  Deronda  with  what 
seemed  a  revival  of  his  original  interest :  it  seem- 
ed as  if  the  face  had  some  attractive  indication 
for  him  which  now  neutralized  the  former  disap- 


136 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


pointment.  After  a  slight  pause,  he  said,  "  Per- 
haps you  know  Hebrew  ?" 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say,  not  at  all." 

Mordecai's  countenance  fell :  he  cast  down  his 
eyelids,  looking  at  his  hands,  which  lay  crossed 
before  him,  and  said  no  more.  Deronda  had  now 
noticed  more  decisively  than  in  their  former  inter- 
view a  difficulty  of  breathing,  which  he  thought 
must  be  a  sign  of  consumption. 

"I've  had  something  else  to  do  than  to  get 
book-learning,"  said  Mr.  Cohen— "I've  had  to 
make  myself  knowing  about  useful  things.  I 
know  stones  well" — here  he  pointed  to  Deron- 
da's  ring.  "  I'm  not  afraid  of  taking  that  ring 
of  yours  at  my  own  valuation.  But  now,"  he 
added,  with  a  certain  drop  in  his  voice  to  a  low- 
er, more  familiar  nasal,  "  what  do  you  want  for 
it?" 

"Fifty  or  sixty  pounds,"  Deronda  answered, 
rather  too  carelessly. 

Cohen  paused  a  little,  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
pockets,  fixed  on  Deronda  a  pair  of  glistening 
eyes  that  suggested  a  miraculous  guinea-pig,  and 
said,  "  Couldn't  do  you  that  Happy  to  oblige, 
but  couldn't  go  that  lengths.  Forty  pound — say 
forty — I'll  let  you  have  forty  on  it." 

Deronda  was  aware  that  Mordecai  had  looked 
up  again  at  the  words  implying  a  monetary  affair, 
and  was  now  examining  him  again,  while  he  said, 
"  Very  well ;  I  shall  redeem  it  in  a  month  or  so." 

"  Good.  I'll  make  you  out  the  ticket  by-and- 
by,"  said  Cohen,  indifferently.  Then  he  held  up 
his  finger  as  a  sign  that  conversation  must  be 
deferred.  He,  Mordecai,  and  Jacob  put  on  their 
hats,  and  Cohen  opened  a  thanksgiving,  which 
was  carried  on  by  responses,  till  Mordecai  de- 
livered himself  alone  at  some  length,  in  a  solemn 
chanting  tone,  with  his  chin  slightly  uplifted  and 
his  thin  hands  clasped  easily  before  him.  Not 
only  in  his  accent  and  tone,  but  in  his  freedom 
from  the  self-consciousness  which  has  reference 
to  others'  approbation,  there  could  hardly  have 
been  a  stronger  contrast  to  the  Jew  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table.  It  was  an  unaccountable  con- 
junction— the  presence  among  these  common, 
prosperous,  shop-keeping  types,  of  a  man  who,  in 
an  emaciated  threadbare  condition,  imposed  a 


certain  awe  on  Deronda,  and  an  embarrassment 
at  not  meeting  his  expectations. 

No  sooner  had  Mordecai  finished  his  devotion- 
al strain  than,  rising,  with  a  slight  bend  of  his 
head  to  the  stranger,  he  walked  back  into  his 
room,  and  shut  the  door  behind  him. 

"  That  seems  to  be  rather  a  remarkable  man," 
said  Deronda,  turning  to  Cohen,  who  immediate- 
ly set  up  his  shoulders,  put  out  his  tongue  slight- 
ly, and  tapped  his  own  brow.  It  was  clearly  to 
be  understood  that  Mordecai  did  not  come  up  to 
the  standard  of  sanity  which  was  set  by  Mr.  Co- 
hen's view  of  men  and  things. 

"  Does  he  belong  to  your  family  ?"  said  Deronda. 

This  idea  appeared  to  be  rather  ludicrous  to 
the  ladies  as  well  as  to  Cohen,  and  the  family  in- 
terchanged looks  of  amusement. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Cohen.  "  Charity !  charity !  He 
worked  for  me,  and  when  he  got  weaker  and 
weaker  I  took  him  in.  He's  an  incumbrance ; 
but  he  brings  a  blessing  down,  and  he  teaches 
the  boy.  Besides,  he  does  the  repairing  at  the 
watehes  and  jewelry." 

Deronda  hardly  abstained  from  smiling  at  this 
mixture  of  kindliness  and  the  desire  to  justify  it 
in  the  light  of  a  calculation ;  but  his  willingness 
to  speak  further  of  Mordecai,  whose  character  was 
made  the  more  enigmatically  striking  by  these  new 
details,  was  baffled.  Mr.  Cohen  immediately  dis- 
missed the  subject  by  reverting  to  the  "  accommo- 
dation," which  was  also  an  act  of  charity,  and 
proceeded  to  make  out  the  ticket,  get  the  forty 
pounds,  and  present  them  both  in  exchange  for 
the  diamond  ring.  Deronda,  feeling  that  it  would 
be  hardly  delicate  to  protract  his  visit  beyond  the 
settlement  of  the  business  which  was  its  pretext, 
had  to  take  his  leave,  with  no  more  decided  re- 
sult than  the  advance  of  forty  pounds  and  the 
pawn  ticket  in  his  breast  pocket,  to  make  a  rea- 
son for  returning  when  he  came  up  to  town  after 
Christmas.  He  was  resolved  that  he  would  then 
endeavor  to  gain  a  little  more  insight  into  the 
character  and  history  of  Mordecai,  from  whom 
also  he  might  gather  something  decisive  about 
the  Cohens — for  example,  the  reason  why  it  was 
forbidden  to  ask  Mrs.  Cohen  the  elder  whether 
she  had  a  daughter. 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

Were  uneasiness  of  conscience  measured  by  extent 
of  crime,  human  history  had  been  different,  and  one 
should  look  to  see  the  contrivers  of  greedy  wars  and 
the  mighty  marauders  of  the  money  market  iu  one 
troop  of  self-lacerating  penitent*  with  the  meaner 
robber  and  cutpnrse,  and  the  murderer  that  doth  his 
butchery  in  small  with  his  own  hand.  No  doubt  wick- 
edness hath  its  rewards  to  distribute ;  but  whoso  wins 
in  this  devil's  game  must  needs  be  baser,  more  cruel, 
more  brutal,  than  the  order  of  this  planet  will  allow 
for  the  multitude  born  of  woman,  the  most  of  these 
carrying  a  form  of  conscience — a  fear  which  is  the 
shadow  of  justice,  a  pity  which  is  the  shadow  of  love— 
that  hindcreth  from  the  prize  of  serene  wickedness,  it- 
self difficult  of  maintenance  in  our  composite  flesh. 

ON  the  29th  of  December  Deronda  knew  that 
the  Grandcourts  had  arrived  at  the  Abbey,  but 
he  had  had  no  glimpse  of  them  before  he  went 
to  dress  for  dinner.  There  had  been  a  splendid 
fall  of  snow,  allowing  the  party  of  children  the 


rare  pleasures  of  snow-balling  and  snow-building, 
and  in  the  Christmas  holidays  the  Mallinger  girls 
were  content  with  no  amusement  unless  it  were 
joined  hi  and  managed  by  "  cousin,"  as  they  had 
always  called  Deronda.  After  that  out-door* exer- 
tion he  had  been  playing  billiards,  and  thus  the 
hours  had  passed  without  his  dwelling  at  all  on 
the  prospect  of  meeting  Gwendolen  at  dinner. 
Nevertheless  that  prospect  was  interesting  to  him, 
and  when,  a  little  tired  and  heated  with  working 
at  amusement,  he  went  to  his  room  before  the 
half-hour  bell  had  rung,  he  began  to  think  of  it 
with  some  speculation  on  the  sort  of  influence  her 
marriage  with  Grandcourt  would  have  on  her, 
and  on  the  probability  that  there  would  be  some 
discernible  shades  of  change  in  her  manner  since 
he  saw  her  at  Diplow,  just  as  there  had  been 
since  his  first  vision  of  her  at  Leubronn. 

"I  fancy  there  are  some  natures  one  cou]d  see 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


137 


growing  or  degenerating  every  day,  if  one  watched 
them,"  was  his  thought.  "  I  suppose  some  of  us 
go  on  faster  than  others  ;  and  I  am  sure  she  is  a 
creature  who  keeps  strong  traces  of  any  thing  that 
has  once  impressed  her.  That  little  affair  of  the 
necklace,  and  the  idea  that  somebody  thought  her 
gambling  wrong,  had  evidently  bitten  into  her. 
But  such  impressibility  tells  both  ways :  it  may 
drive  one  to  desperation  as  soon  as  to  any  thing 
better.  And  whatever  fascinations  Grandcourt 
may  have  for  capricious  tastes — good  heavens ! 
who  can  believe  that  he  would  call  out  the  tender 
affections  in  daily  companionship  ?  One  might 
be  tempted  to  horsewhip  him  for  the  sake  of 
getting  some  show  of  passion  into  his  face  and 
speech.  I'm  afraid  she  married  him  out  of  am- 
bition— to  escape  poverty.  But  why  did  she  run 
out  of  his  way  at  first  ?  The  poverty  came  after, 
though.  Poor  thing !  she  may  have  been  urged 
into  it.  How  can  one  feel  any  thing  else  than 
pity  for  a  young  creature  like  that — full  of  un- 
used life,  ignorantly  rash — hanging  all  her  blind 
expectations  on  that  remnant  of  a  human  being!" 

Doubtless  the  phrases  which  Deronda's  medi- 
tation applied  to  the  bridegroom  were  the  less 
complimentary  for  the  excuses  and  pity  in  which 
it  clad  the  bride.  His  notion  of  Grandcourt  as  a 
"  remnant"  was  founded  on  no  particular  knowl- 
edge, but  simply  on  the  impression  which  ordina- 
ry polite  intercourse  had  given  him  that  Grand- 
court  had  worn  out  all  his  natural  healthy  interest 
in  things. 

In  general,  one  may  be  sure  that  whenever  a 
marriage  of  any  mark  takes  place,  male  acquaint- 
ances are  likely  to  pity  the  bride,  female  acquaint- 
ances the  bridegroom :  each,  it  is  thought,  might 
have  done  better ;  and  especially  where  the  bride 
is  charming,  young  gentlemen  on  the  scene  are 
apt  to  conclude  that  she  can  have  no  real  attach- 
ment to  a  fellow  so  uninteresting  to  themselves 
as  her  husband,  but  has  married  him  on  other 
grounds.  Who  under  such  circumstances  pities 
the  husband  ?  Even  his  female  friends  are  apt 
to  think  his  position  retributive :  he  should  have 
chosen  some  one  else.  But  perhaps  Dcronda  may 
be  excused  that  he  did  not  prepare  any  pity  for 
Grandcourt,  who  had  never  struck  acquaintances 
as  likely  to  come  out  of  his  experiences  with  more 
suffering  than  he  inflicted ;  whereas  for  Gwendo- 
len, young,  headlong,  eager  for  pleasure,  fed  with 
the  flattery  which  makes  a  lovely  girl  believe  in 
her  divine  right  to  rule — how  quickly  might  life 
turn  from  expectancy  to  a  bitter  sense  of  the  ir- 
remediable !  After  what  he  had  seen  of  her,  he 
must  have  had  rather  dull  feelings  not  to  have 
looked  forward  with  some  interest  to  her  entrance 
into  the  room.  Still,  since  the  honey-moon  was 
already  three  weeks  in  "the  distance,  and  Gwen- 
dolen had  been  enthroned  not  only  at  Ryelands, 
but  at  Diplow,  she  was  likely  to  have  composed 
her  countenance  with  suitable  manifestation  or 
concealment,  not  being  one  who  would  indulge 
the  curious  by  a  helpless  exposure  of  her  feelings. 

A  various  party  had  been  invited  to  meet  the 
new  couple :  the  old  aristocracy  was  represented 
by  Lord  and  Lady  Pentreath ;  the  old  gentry  by 
young  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fitzadam,  of  the  Worcester- 
shire branch  of  the  Fitzadams ;  politics  and  the 
public  good,  as  specialized  in  the  cider  interest, 
by  Mr.  Fenn,  member  for  West  Orchards,  accom- 
panied by  his  two  daughters ;  Lady  Mallinger's 
family  by  her  brother,  Mr.  Raymond,  and  his  wife ; 


the  useful  bachelor  element  by  Mr.  Sinker,  the 
eminent  counsel,  and  by  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  whose 
acquaintance  Sir  Hugo  had  found  pleasant  enough 
at  Leubronn  to  be  adopted  in  England. 

All  had  assembled  in  the  drawing-room  before 
the  new  couple  appeared.  Meanwhile  the  time 
was  being  passed  chiefly  in  noticing  the  children 
— various  little  Raymonds,  nephews  and  nieces 
of  Lady  Mallinger's,  with  her  own  three  girls, 
who  were  always  allowed  to  appear  at  this  hour. 
The  scene  was  really  delightful — enlarged  by  full- 
length  portraits  with  deep  backgrounds,  inserted 
hi  tho  cedar  paneling — surmounted  by  a  ceiling 
that  glowed  with  the  rich  colors  of  the  coats  of 
arms  ranged  between  the  sockets — illuminated 
almost  as  much  by  the  red  fire  of  oak  boughs  as 
by  the  pale  wax-lights — stilled  by  the  deep-piled 
carpet  and  by  the  high  English  breeding  that  sub- 
dues all  voices; 'while  the  mixture  of  ages,  from 
the  white-haired  Lord  and  Lady  Pentreath  to  the 
four-year-old  Edgar  Raymond,  gave  a  varied  charm 
to  the  living  groups.  Lady  Mallinger,  with  fair 
matronly  roundness  and  mildly  prominent  blue 
eyes,  moved  about  in  her  black  velvet,  carrying  a 
tiny  white  dog  on  her  arm  as  a  sort  of  finish  to 
her  costume ;  the  children  were  scattered  among 
the  ladies,  while  most  of  the  gentlemen  were 
standing  rather  aloof  conversing  with  that  very 
moderate  vivacity  observable  during  the  long  min- 
utes before  dinner.  Dcronda  was  a  little  out  of 
the  circle  in  a  dialogue  fixed  upon  him  by  Mr. 
Vandernoodt,  a  man  of  the  best  Dutch  blood  im- 
ported at  the  revolution :  for  the  rest,  one  of  those 
commodious  persons  in  society  who  are  nothing 
particular  themselves,  but  are  understood  to  be 
acquainted  with  the  best  in  every  department; 
close-clipped,  pale-eyed,  nonchalant,  as  good  a  foil 
as  could  well  be  found  to  the  intense  coloring 
and  vivid  gravity  of  Deronda. 

He  was  talking  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom, 
whose  appearance  was  being  waited  for.  Mr. 
Vandernoodt  was  an  industrious  gleaner  of  per- 
sonal  details,  and  could  probably  tell  every  thing 
about  a  great  philosopher  or  physicist  except  his 
theories  or  discoveries :  he  was  now  implying  that 
he  had  learned  many  facts  about  Grandcourt  since 
meeting  him  at  Leubronn. 

"  Men  who  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  life  don't 
always  end  by  choosing  their  wives  so  well.  He 
has  had  rather  an  anecdotic  history — gone  rather 
deep  into  pleasures,  I  fancy,  lazy  as  he  is.  But 
of  course  you  know  all  about  him." 

"No,  really,"  said  Deronda,  in  an  indifferent 
tone.  "  >  know  little  more  of  him  than  that  he 
is  Sir  Hugo's  nephew." 

But  now  the  door  opened,  and  deferred  any 
satisfaction  of  Mr.  Vandernoodt's  communicative- 
ness. 

The  scene  was  one  to  set  off  any  figure  of  dis- 
tinction that  entered  on  it,  and  certainly  when 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Grandcourt  entered,  no  beholder 
could  deny  that  their  figures  had  distinction. 
The  bridegroom  had  neither  more  nor  less  easy 
perfection  of  costume,  neither  more  nor  less  well- 
cut  impassibility  of  face,  than  before  his  mar- 
riage. It  was  to  be  supposed  of  him  that  he 
would  put  up  with  nothing  less  than  the  best  in 
outward  equipment,  wife  included ;  and  the  wife 
on  his  arm  was  what  he  might  have  been  expect- 
ed to  choose.  "  By  George,  I  think  she's  hand- 
somer, if  any  thing  i"  said  Mr.  Vandernoodt.  And 
Dcronda  was  of  the  same  opinion,  but  he  said 


138 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


nothing.  The  white  silk  and  diamonds — it  may 
seem  strange,  but  she  did  wear  the  diamonds  on 
her  neck,  in  her  ears,  in  her  hair — might  have 
something  to  do  with  the  new  imposingness  of 
her  beauty,  which  flashed  on  him  as  more  un- 
questionable, if  not  more  thoroughly  satisfactory, 
than  when  he  had  first  seen  her  at  the  gaming 
table.  Some  faces  which  are  peculiar  in  their 
beauty  are  like  original  works  of  art :  for  the  first 
time  they  are  almost  always  met  with  question. 
But  in  seeing  Gwendolen  at  Diplow,  Derouda  had 
discerned  in  her  more  than  he  had  expected  of 
that  tender  appealing  charm  which  we  call  'wom- 
anly. Was  there  any  new  change  since  then? 
He  distrusted  his  impressions ;  but  as  he  saw  her 
receiving  greetings  with  what  seemed  a  proud 
cold  quietude  and  a  superficial  smile,  there  seemed 
to  be  at  work  within  her  the  same  demonic  force 
that  had  possessed  her  when  she  'took  him  in  her 
resolute  glance  and  turned  away  a  loser  from  the 
gaming  table.  There  was  no  time  for  more  of  a 
conclusion — no  time  even  for  him  to  give  his 
greeting — before  the  summons  to  dinner. 

He  sat  not  far  from  opposite  to  her  at  table, 
and  could  sometimes  hear  what  she  said  in  an- 
swer to  Sir  Hugo,  who  was  at  his  liveliest  in  con- 
versation with  her ;  but  though  he  looked  toward 
her  with  the  intention  of  bowing,  she  gave  him 
no  opportunity  of  doing  so  for  some  time.  At 
last  Sir  Hugo,  who  might  have  imagined  that 
they  had  already  spoken  to  each  other,  said, 
"  Deronda,  you  will  like  to  hear  what  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  tells  me  about  your  favorite,  Klesmer." 

Gwendolen's  eyelids  had  been  lowered,  and  De- 
ronda, already  looking  at  her,  thought  he  discov- 
ered a  quivering  reluctance  as  she  was  obliged  to 
raise  them  and  return  his  unembarrassed  bow  and 
smile,  her  own  smile  being  one  of  the  lip  merely. 
It  was  but  an  instant,  and  Sir  Hugo  continued 
without  pause, 

"  The  Arrowppints  have  condoned  the  marriage, 
and  he  is  spending  the  Christmas  with  his  bride 
at  Quetcham." 

"  I  suppose  he  will  be  glad  of  it  for  the  sake  of 
his  wife,  else  I  dare  say  he  would  not  have  mind- 
ed keeping  at  a  distance,"  said  Deronda. 

"It's  a  sort  of  troubadour  story,"  said  Lady 
Pentreath,  an  easy,  deep-voiced  old  lady ;  "  I'm 
glad  to  find  a  little  romance  left  among  us.  I 
think  our  young  people  now  are  getting  too  world- 
ly-wise." 

"  It  shows  the  Arrowpoints'  good  sense,  how- 
ever, to  have  adopted  the  affair,  after  the  fuss  in 
the  papers,"  said  Sir  Hugo.  "  And  disowning 
your  only  child  because  of  a  mesalliance  is  some- 
thing like  disowning  your  one  eye :  every  body 
knows  it's  yours,  and  you  have  no  other  to  make 
an  appearance  with." 

"As  to  mesalliance,  there's  no  blood  on  any 
side,"  said  Lady  Pentreath.  "  Old  Admiral  Ar- 
rowpoint  was  one  of  Nelson's  men,  you  know — a 
doctor's  son.  And  we  all  know  how  the  moth- 
er's money  came." 

"  If  there  were  any  mesalliance  in  the  case,  I 
should  say  it  was  on  Klesmer's  side,"  said  De- 
ronda. 

"  Ah,  you  think  it  is  a  case  of  the  immortal 
marrying  the  mortal.  What  is  your  opinion?" 
said  Sir  Hugo,  looking  at  Gwendolen. 

"  I  have  no  doubt  that  Herr  Klesmer  thinks 
himself  immortal.  But  I  dare  say  his  wife  will 
burn  as  much  incense  before  him  as  he  requires," 


said  Gwendolen.  She  had  recovered  any  com- 
posure that  she  might  have  lost. 

"  Don't  you  approve  of  a  wife  burning  incense 
before  her  husband  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo,  with  an  air 
of  jocoseness. 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Gwendolen,  "  if  it  were  only  to 
make  others  believe  in  him."  She  paused  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  said,  with  more  gayety,  "  When 
Herr  Klesmer  admires  his  own  genius,  it  will  take 
off  some  of  the  absurdity  if  his  wife  says  Amen." 

"  Klesmer  is  no  favorite  of  yours,  I  see,"  said 
Sir  Hugo. 

"I  think  very  highly  of  him,  I  assure  you," 
said  Gwendolen.  "  His  genius  is  quite  above 
my  judgment,  and  I  know  him  to  be  exceedingly 
generous." 

She  spoke  with  the  sudden  seriousness  which 
is  often  meant  to  correct  an  unfair  or  indiscreet 
sally,  having  a  bitterness  against  Klesmer  in  her 
secret  soul  which  she  knew  herself  unable  to  jus- 
tify. Deronda  was  wondering  what  he  should 
have  thought  of  her  if  he  had  never  heard  of  her 
before :  probably  that  she  put  on  a  little  hardness 
and  defiance  by  way  of  concealing  some  painful 
consciousness — if,  indeed,  he  could  imagine  her 
manners  otherwise  than  in  the  light  of  his  sus- 
picion. But  why  did  she  not  recognize  him  with 
more  friendliness  ? 

Sir  Hugo,  by  way  of  changing  the  subject,  said 
to  her,  "  Is  not  this  a  beautiful  room  ?  It  was 
part  of  the  refectory  of  the  Abbey.  There  was 
a  division  made  by  those  pillars  and  the  three 
arches,  and  afterward  they  were  built  up.  Else 
it  was  half  as  large  again  originally.  There  used 
to  be  rows  of  Benedictines  sitting  where  we  are 
sitting.  Suppose  we  were  suddenly  to  see  the 
lights  burning  low  and  the  ghosts  of  the  old 
monks  rising  behind  all  our  chairs !" 

"  Please  don't !"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  play- 
ful shudder.  "  It  is  very  nice  to  come  after  an- 
cestors and  monks,  but  they  should  know  their 
places  and  keep  under-ground.  I  should  be  rath- 
er frightened  to  go  about  this  house  all  alone.  I 
suppose  the  old  generations  must  be  angry  with 
us  because  we  have  altered  things  so  much." 

"  Oh,  the  ghosts  must  be  of  all  political  par- 
ties," said  Sir  Hugo.  "And  those  fellows  who 
wanted  to  change  things  while  they  lived,  and 
couldn't  do  it,  must  be  on  our  side.  But  if  you 
would  not  like  to  go  over  the  house  alone,  you 
will  like  to  go  in  company,  I  hope.  You  and 
Grandcourt  ought  to  see  it  all.  And  we  will  ask 
Deronda  to  go  round  with  us.  He  is  more  learn- 
ed about  it  than  I  am."  The  Baronet  was  in  the 
most  complaisant  of  humors. 

Gwendolen  stole  a  glance  at  Deronda,  who  must 
have  heard  what  Sir  Hugo  said,  for  he  had  his 
face  turned  toward  them  helping  himself  to  an 
entree ;  but  he  looked  as  impassive  as  a  picture. 
At  the  notion  of  Deronda's  showing  her  and 
Grandcourt  the  place  which  was  to  be  theirs,  and 
which  she  with  painful  emphasis  remembered 
might  have  been  his  (perhaps,  if  others  had  act- 
ed differently),  certain  thoughts  had  rushed  in 
— thoughts  often  repeated  within  her,  but  now 
returning  on  an  occasion  embarrassingly  new; 
and  she  was  conscious  of  something  furtive  and 
awkward  in  her  glance,  which  Sir  Hugo  must  have 
noticed.  With  her  usual  readiness  of  resource 
against  betrayal,  she  said,  playf tilly,  "  You  don't 
know  how  much  I  am  afraid  of  Mr.  Deronda." 

"How's  that?     Because  you  think  him  too 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


139 


learned  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo,  whom  the  peculiarity  of 
her  glance  had  not  escaped. 

"  No.  It  is  ever  since  I  first  saw  him  at  Leu- 
bronn.  Because  when  he  came  to  look  on  at  the 
roulette  table,  I  began  to  lose.  He  cast  an  evil- 
eye  on  my  play.  He  didn't  approve  it.  He  has 
told  me  so.  And  now  whatever  I  do  before  him, 
I  am  afraid  he  will  cast  an  evil-eye  upon  it." 

"  Gad !  I'm  rather  afraid  of  him  myself  when 
he  doesn't  approve,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  glancing  at 
Deronda ;  and  then  turning  his  face  toward  Gwen- 
dolen, he  said,  less  audibly,  "  I  don't  think  ladies 
generally  object  to  have  his  eyes  upon  them." 
The  Baronet's  small  chronic  complaint  of  face- 
tiousness  was  at  this  moment  almost  as  annoying 
to  Gwendolen  as  it  often  was  to  Deronda. 

"  I  object  to  any  eyes  that  are  critical,"  she 
said,  in  a  cool  high  voice,  with  a  turn  of  her  neck. 
"  Are  there  many  of  these  old  rooms  left  in  the 
Abbey  ?" 

"Not  many.  There  is  a  fine  cloistered  court 
with  a  long  gallery  above  it.  But  the  finest  bit 
of  all  is  turned  into  stables.  It  is  part  of  the 
old  church.  When  I  improved  the  place  I  made 
the  most  of  every  other  bit ;  but  it  was  out  of  my 
reach  to  change  the  stables,  so  the  horses  have 
the  benefit  of  the  fine  old  choir.  You  must  go 
and  see  it." 

"  I  shall  like  to  see  the  horses  as  well  as  the 
building,"  said  Gwendolen. 

"  Oh,  I  have  no  stud  to  speak  of.  Grandcourt 
will  look  with  contempt  at  my  horses,"  said  Sir 
Hugo.  "  I've  given  up  hunting,  and  go  on  in  a 
jog-trot  way,  as  becomes  an  old  gentleman  with 
daughters.  "  The  fact  is,  I  went  in  for  doing  too 
much  at  this  place.  We  all  lived  at  Diplow  for 
two  years  while  the  alterations  were  going  on. 
Do  you  like  Diplow  ?" 

"  Not  particularly,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  in- 
difference. One  would  have  thought  that  the 
young  lady  had  all  her  life  had  more  family  seats 
than  she  cared  to  go  to. 

"  Ah !  it  will  not  do  after  Ryelands,"  said  Sir 
Hugo,  well  pleased.  "  Grandcourt,  I  know,  took 
it  for  the  sake  of  the  hunting.  But  he  found 
something  so  much  better  there,"  added  the  Bar- 
onet, lowering  his  voice,  "  that  he  might  well  pre- 
fer it  to  any  other  place  in  the  world." 

"  It  has  one  attraction  for  me,"  said  Gwendo- 
len, passing  over  this  compliment  with  a  chill 
smile,  "  that  it  is  within  reach  of  Offendene." 

"  I  understand  that,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  and  then 
let  the  subject  drop. 

What  amiable  baronet  can  escape  the  effect  of 
a  strong  desire  for  a  particular  possession  ?  Sir 
Hugo  would  have  been  glad  that  Grandcourt, 
with  or  without  reason,  should  prefer  any  other 
place  to  Diplow;  but  inasmuch  as  in  the  pure 
process  of  wishing  we  can  always  make  the  con- 
ditions of  our  gratification  benevolent,  he  did 
wish  that  Grandcourt's  convenient  disgust  for 
Diplow  should  not  be  associated  with  his  mar- 
riage of  this  very  charming  bride.  Gwendolen 
was  much  to  the  Baronet's  taste,  but,  as  he  ob- 
served afterward  to  Lady  Mallinger,  he  should 
never  have  taken  her  for  a  young  girl  who  had 
married  beyond  her  expectations. 

Deronda  had  not  heard  much  of  this  conversa- 
tion, having  given  his  attention  elsewhere,  but 
the  glimpses  he  had  of  Gwendolen's  manner  deep- 
ened the  impression  that  it  had  something  newly 
artificial. 


Later,  in  the  drawing-room,  Deronda,  at  some- 
body's request,  sat  down  to  the  piano  and  sang. 
Afterward  Mrs.  Raymond  took  his  place ;  and  on 
rising  he  observed  that  Gwendolen  had  left  her 
seat,  and  had  come  to  this  end  of  the  room,  as  if 
to  listen  more  fully,  but  was  now  standing  with 
her  back  to  every  one,  apparently  contemplating 
a  fine  cowled  head  carved  in  ivory  which  hung 
over  a  small  table.  He  longed  to  go  to  her  and 
speak.  Why  should  he  not  obey  such  an  im- 
pulse, as  he  would  have  done  toward  any  other 
lady  in  the  room  ?  Yet  he  hesitated  some  mo- 
ments, observing  the  graceful  lines  of  her  back, 
but  not  moving. 

If  you  have  any  reason  for  not  indulging  a 
wish  to  speak  to  a  fair  woman,  it  is  a  bad  plan 
to  look  long  at  her  back :  the  wish  to  see  what 
it  screens  becomes  the  stronger.  There  may  be 
a  very  sweet  smile  on  the  other  side.  Deronda 
ended  by  going  to  the  end  of  the  small  table,  at 
right  angles  to  Gwendolen's  position ;  but  before 
he  could  speak  she  had  turned  on  him  no  smile, 
but  such  an  appealing  look  of  sadness,  so  utterly 
different  from  the  chill  effort  of  her  recognition 
at  table,  that  his  speech  was  checked.  For  what 
was  an  appreciable  space  of  time  to  both,  though 
the  observation  of  others  could  not  have  meas- 
ured it,  they  looked  at  each  other — she  seeming 
to  take  the  deep  rest  of  confession,  he  with  an 
answering  depth  of  sympathy  that  neutralized 
other  feelings. 

"  Will  you  not  join  in  the  music  ?"  he  said,  by 
way  of  meeting  the  necessity  for  speech. 

That  her  look  of  confession  had  been  involun- 
tary was  shown  by  that  just  perceptible  shake 
and  change  of  countenance  with  which  she  roused 
herself  to  reply,  calmly,  "I  join  in  it  by  listening. 
I  am  fond  of  music." 

"  Are  you  not  a  musician  ?" 

"  I  have  given  a  great  deal  of  time  to  music. 
But  I  have  not  talent  enough  to  make  it  worth 
while.  I  shall  never  sing  again." 

"  But  if  you  are  fond  of  music,  it  will  always 
be  worth  while  in  private,  for  your  own  delight. 
I  make  it  a  virtue  to  be  content  with  my  middling- 
ness,"  said  Deronda,  smiling ;  "  it  is  always  par- 
donable, so  that  one  does  not  ask  others  to  take 
it  for  superiority." 

"  I  can  not  imitate  you,"  said  Gwendolen,  re- 
covering her  tone  of  artificial  vivacity.  "  To  be 
middling  with  me  is  another  phrase  for  being  dull. 
And  the  worst  fault  I  have  to  find  with  the  world 
is  that  it  is  dull.  Do  you  know,  I  am  going  to 
justify  gambling  in  spite  of  you.  It  is  a  refuge 
from  dullness." 

"I  don't  admit  the  justification,"  said  Deronda. 
"  I  think  what  we  call  the  dullness  of  things  is  a 
disease  in  ourselves.  Else  how  could  any  one 
find  an  intense  interest  in  life  ?  And  many  do." 

"Ah,  I  see !  The  fault  I  find  in  the  world  is 
my  own  fault,"  said  Gwendolen,  smiling  at  him. 
Then,  after  a  moment,  looking  up  at  the  ivory 
again,  she  said,  "  Do  you  never  find  fault  with  the 
world  or  with  others  »" 

"  Oh  yes.    When  I  am  in  a  grumbling  mood." 

"And  hate  people?  Confess  you  hate  them 
when  they  stand  in  your  way — when  their  gain  is 
j  your  loss  ?  That  is  your  own  phrase,  you  know." 

"  We  are  often  standing  in  each  other's  way 
when  we  can't  help  it.  I  think  it  is  stupid  to 
hate  people  on  that  ground." 

"  But  if  they  injure  you  and  could  have  helped 


140 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


it  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  hard  intensity  un- 
accountable in  incidental  talk  like  this. 

Deronda  wondered  at  her  choice  of  subjects. 
A  painful  impression  arrested  his  answer  a  mo- 
ment, but  at  last  he  said,  with  a  graver,  deeper 
intonation,  "  Why,  then,  after  all,  I  prefer  my 
place  to  theirs." 

"  There  I  believe  you  are  right,"  said  Gwendo- 
len, with  a  sudden  little  laugh,  and  turned  to  join 
the  group  at  the  piano. 

Deronda  looked  round  for  Grandcourt,  wonder- 
ing whether  he  followed  his  bride's  movements 
with  any  attention ;  but  it  was  rather  undiscern- 
ing  in  him  to  suppose  that  he  could  find  out  the 
fact.  Grandcourt  had  a*  delusive  mode  of  ob- 
serving whatever  had  an  interest  for  him,  which 
could  be  surpassed  by  no  sleepy-eyed  animal  on 
the  watch  for  prey.  At  that  moment  he  was 
plunged  in  the  depth  of  an  easy-chair,  being 
talked  to  by  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  who  apparently 
thought  the  acquaintance  of  such  a  bridegroom 
worth  cultivating ;  and  an  incautious  person 
might  have  supposed  it  safe  to  telegraph  secrets 
in  front  of  him,  the  common  prejudice  being 
that  your  quick  observer  is  one  whose  eyes  have 
quick  movements.  Not  at  all  If  you  want  a 
respectable  witness  who  will  see  nothing  incon- 
venient, choose  a  vivacious  gentleman,  very  much 
on  the  alert,  with  two  eyes  wide  open,  a  glass  in 
one  of  them,  and  an  entire  impartiality  as  to  the 
purpose  of  looking.  If  Grandcourt  cared  to  keep 
any  one  under  his  power,  he  saw  them  out  of  the 
corners  of  his  long  narrow  eyes,  and  if  they  went 
behind  him,  he  had  a  constructive  process  by 
which  he  knew  what  they  were  doing  there.  He 
knew  perfectly  well  where  his  wife  was,  and  how 
she  was  behaving.  Was  he  going  to  be  a  jealous 
husband  ?  Deronda  imagined  that  to  be  likely ; 
but  his  imagination  was  as  much  astray  about 
Grandcourt  as  it  would  have  been  about  an  unex- 
plored continent  where  all  the  species  were  pe- 
culiar. He  did  not  conceive  that  he  himself  was 
a  likely  object  of  jealousy,  or  that  he  should  give 
any  pretext  for  it ;  but  the  suspicion  that  a  wife 
is  not  happy  naturally  leads  one  to  speculate  on 
the  husband's  private  deportment ;  and  Deronda 
found  himself  after  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  in 
the  rather  ludicrous  position  of  sitting  up  severe- 
ly holding  a  Hebrew  grammar  in  his  hands  (for 
somehow,  in  deference  to  Mordecai,  he  had  begun 
to  study  Hebrew),  with  the  consciousness  that  he 
had  been  in  that  attitude  nearly  an  hour,  and  had 
thought  of  nothing  but  Gwendolen  and  her  hus- 
band. To  be  an  unusual  young  man  means  for 
the  most  part  to  get  a  difficult  mastery  over  the 
usual,  which  is  often  like  the  sprite  of  ill  luck 
you  pack  up  your  goods  to  escape  from,  and  see 
grinning  at  you  from  the  top  of  your  luggage  van. 
The  peculiarities  of  Deronda's  nature  had  been 
acutely  touched  by  the  brief  incidents  and  words 
which  made  the  history  of  his  intercourse  with 
Gwendolen ;  and  this  evening's  slight  addition  had 
given  them  an  importunate  recurrence.  It  was 
not  vanity— it  was  ready  sympathy— that  had 
made  him  alive  to  a  certain  appealingness  in  her 
behavior  toward  him;  and  the  difficulty  with 
which  she  had  seemed  to  raise  her  eyes  to  bow 
to  him,  in  the  first  instance,  was  to  be  interpreted 
now  by  that  unmistakable  look  of  involuntary 
confidence  which  she  had  afterward  turned  on  him 
under  the  consciousness  of  his  approach. 

"  What  is  the  use  of  it  all  ?"  thought  Deronda, 


as  he  threw  down  his  grammar,  and  began  to 
undress.  "  I  can't  do  any  thing  to  help  her — 
nobody  can — if  she  has  found  out  her  mistake  al- 
ready. And  it  seems  to  me  that  she  has  a  dreary 
lack  of  the  ideas  that  might  help  her.  Strange 
and  piteous  to  think  what  a  centre  of  wretched- 
ness a  delicate  piece  of  human  flesh  like  that 
might  be,  wrapped  round  with  fine  raiment,  her 
ears  pierced  for  gems,  her  head  held  loftily,  her 
mouth  all  smiling  pretense,  the  poor  soul  within 
her  sitting  in  sick  distaste  of  all  things!  But 
what  do  I  know  of  her  ?  There  may  be  a  demon 
in  her  to  match  the  worst  husband,  for  what  I 
can  tell.  She  was  clearly  an  ill-educated,  world- 
ly girl :  perhaps  she  is  a  coquette." 

This  last  reflection,  not  much  believed  in,  was 
a  self -administered  dose  of  caution,  prompted 
partly  by  Sir  Hugo's  much-contemned  joking  on 
the  subject  of  flirtation.  Deronda  resolved  not 
to  volunteer  any  tete-d-tete  with  Gwendolen  during 
the  few  days  of  her  stay  at  the  Abbey ;  and  he 
was  capable  of  keeping  a  resolve  in  spite  of  much 
inclination  to  the  contrary. 

But  a  man  can  not  resolve  about  a  woman's 
actions,  least  of  all  about  those  of  a  woman  like 
Gwendolen,  in  whose  nature  there  was  a  com- 
bination of  proud  reserve  with  rashness,  of  per- 
ilously poised  terror  with  defiance,  which  might 
alternately  flatter  and  disappoint  control.  Few 
words  could  less  represent  her  than  "  coquette." 
She  had  a  native  love  of  homage,  and  belief  in 
her  own  power;  but  no  cold  artifice  for  the 
sake  of  enslaving.  And  the  poor  thing's  belief 
in  her  power,  with  her  other  dreams  before  mar- 
riage, had  often  to  be  thrust  aside  now  like  the 
toys  of  a  sick  child,  which  it  looks  at  with  dull 
eyes,  and  has  no  heart  to  play  with,  however  it 
may  try. 

The  next  day  at  lunch  Sir  Hugo  said  to  her, 
"  The  thaw  has  gone  on  like  magic,  and  it's  so 
pleasant  out-of-doors  just  now — shall  we  go  and 
see  the  stables  and  the  other  old  bits  about  the 
place  ?" 

"  Yes,  pray,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  You  will  like 
to  see  the  stables,  Henleigh  ?"  she  added,  looking 
at  her  husband. 

"  Uncommonly,"  said  Grandcourt,  with  an  in- 
difference which  seemed  to  give  irony  to  the  word, 
as  he  returned  her  look.  It  was  the  first  time 
Deronda  had  seen  them  speak  to  each  other  since 
their  arrival,  and  he  thought  their  exchange  of 
looks  as  cold  and  official  as  if  it  had  been  a  cere- 
mony to  keep  up  a  charter.  Still,  the  English 
fondness  for  reserve  will  account  for  much  iu><r:i- 
tion;  and  Grandcourt's  manners  with  an  extra 
veil  of  reserve  over  them  might  be  expected  to 
present  the  extreme  type  of  the  national  taste. 

"  Who  else  is  inclined  to  make  the  tour  of  the 
house  and  premises  V"  said  Sir  Hugo.  "  The  la- 
dies must  muffle  themselves :  there  is  only  just 
about  time  to  do  it  well  before  sunset.  You  will 
go,  Dan,  won't  you  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Deronda,  carelessly,  knowing 
that  Sir  Hugo  would  think  any  excuse  disobliging. 

"  All  meet  in  the  library,  then,  when  they  are 
ready — say,  in  half  an  hour,"  said  the  Baronet. 
Gwendolen  made  herself  ready  with  wonderful 
quickness,  and  in  ten  minutes  came  down  into 
the  library  in  her  sables,  plume,  and  little  thick 
boots.  As  soon  as  she  entered  the  room  she  was 
aware  that  some  one  else  was  there :  it  was  pre- 
cisely what  she  had  hoped  for.  Deronda  was 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


141 


standing  with  his  back  toward  her  at  the  far  end 
of  the  room,  and  was  looking  over  a  newspaper. 
How  could  little  thick  boots  make  any  noise  on 
an  Axminster  carpet  ?  And  to  cough  would  have 
seemed  an  intended  signaling,  which  her  pride 
could  not  condescend  to ;  also,  she  felt  bashful 
about  walking  up  to  him  and  letting  him  know 
that  she  was  there,  though  it  was  her  hunger  to 
speak  to  him  which  had  set  her  imagination  on 
constructing  this  chance  of  finding  him,  and  had 
made  her  hurry  down,  as  birds  hover  near  the 
water  which  they  dare  not  drink.  Always  un- 
easily dubious  about  his  opinion  of  her,  she  felt 
a  peculiar  anxiety  to-day,  lest  he  might  think  of 
her  with  contempt,  as  one  triumphantly  conscious 
of  being  Grandcourt's  wife,  the  future  lady  of  this 
domain.  It  was  her  habitual  effort  now  to  mag- 
nify the  satisfactions  of  her  pride,  on  which  she 
nourished  her  strength ;  but  somehow  Deronda's 
being  there  disturbed  them  all.  There  was  not 
the  faintest  touch  of  coquetry  in  the  attitude  of 
her  mind  toward  him:  he  was  unique  to  her 
among  men,  because  he  had  impressed  her  as  be- 
ing not  her  admirer  but  her  superior:  in  some 
mysterious  way  he  was  becoming  a  part  of  her 
conscience,  as  one  woman  whose  nature  is  an  ob- 
ject of  reverential  belief  may  become  a  new  con- 
science to  a  man. 

And  now  he  would  not  look  round  and  find  out 
that  she  was  there !  The  paper  crackled  in  his 
hand,  his  head  rose  and  sank,  exploring  those 
stupid  columns,  and  he  was  evidently  stroking  his 
beard,  as  if  this  world  were  a  very  easy  affair  to 
her.  Of  course  all  the  rest  of  the  company  would 
soon  be  down,  and  the  opportunity  of  her  saying 
something  to  efface  her  flippancy  of  the  evening 
before  would  be  quite  gone.  She  felt  sick  with 
irritation — so  fast  do  young  creatures  like  her  ab- 
sorb misery  through  invisible  suckers  of  their 
own  fancies — and  her  face  had  gathered  that  pe- 
culiar expression  which  comes  with  a  mortifica- 
tion to  which  tears  are  forbidden. 

At  last  he  threw  down  the  paper  and  turned 
round. 

"  Oh,  you  are  there  already,"  he  said,  coming 
forward  a  step  or  two.  "I  must  go  and  put  on 
my  coat." 

He  turned  aside  and  walked  out  of  the  room. 
This  was  behaving  quite  badly.  Mere  politeness 
would  have  made  him  stay  to  exchange  some 
words  before  leaving  her  alone.  It  was  true  that 
Grandcourt  came  in  with  Sir  Hugo  immediately 
after,  so  that  the  words  must  have  been  too  few 
to  be  worth  any  thing.  As  it  was,  they  saw  him 
walking  from  the  library  door. 

"  A — you  look  rather  ill,"  said  Grandcourt,  go- 
ing straight  up  to  her,  standing  in  front  of  her, 
and  looking  into  her  eyes.  "  Do  you  feel  equal 
to  the  walk?" 

"  Yes,  I  shall  like  it,"  said  Gwendolen,  without 
the  slightest  movement,  except  this  of  the  lips. 

"  We  could  put  off  going  over  the  house,  you 
know,  and  only  go  out-of-doors,"  said  Sir  Hugo, 
kindly,  while  Grandcourt  turned  aside. 

"  Oh  dear  no !"  said  Gwendolen,  speaking  with 
determination ;  "  let  us  put  off  nothing.  I  want 
a  long  walk." 

The  rest  of  the  walking  party — two  ladies  and 
two  gentlemen  besides  Deronda — had  now  assem- 
bled; and  Gwendolen,  rallying,  went  with  due 
cheerfulness  by  the  side  of  Sir  Hugo,  paying  ap- 
parently an  equal  attention  to  the  commentaries 


Deronda  was  called  upon  to  give  on  the  various 
architectural  fragments,  and  to  Sir  Hugo's  rea- 
sons for  not  attempting  to  remedy  the  mixture  of 
the  undisguised  modern  with  the  antique — which, 
in  his  opinion,  only  made  the  place  the  more  truly 
historical.  On  their  way  to  the  buttery  and  kitch- 
en they  took  the  outside  of  the  house,  and  paused 
before  a  beautiful  pointed  doorway,  which  was 
the  only  old  remnant  in  the  east  front. 

"  Well,  now,  to  my  mind,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  "  that 
is  more  interesting  standing  as  it  is  in  the  middle 
of  what  is  frankly  four  centuries  later,  than  if  the 
whole  front  had  been  dressed  up  in  a  pretense  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  Additions  ought  to  smack 
of  the  time  when  they  are  made,  and  carry  the 
stamp  of  their  period.  I  wouldn't  destroy  any 
old  bits,  but  that  notion  of  reproducing  the  old  is 
a  mistake,  I  think.  At  least,  if  a  man  likes  to  do 
it,  he  must  pay  for  his  whistle.  Besides,  where 
are  you  to  stop  along  that  road — making  loop- 
holes where  you  don't  want  to  peep,  and  so  on  ? 
You  may  as  well  ask  me  to  wear  out  the  stones 
with  kneeling ;  eh,  Grandcourt  ?" 

"  A  confounded  nuisance,"  drawled  Grandcourt. 
"  I  hate  fellows  wanting  to  howl  litanies — acting 
the  greatest  bores  that  have  ever  existed." 

"  Well,  yes,  that's  what  their  romanticism  must 
come  to,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  in  a  tone  of  confidential 
assent — "  that  is,  if  they  carry  it  out  logically." 

"  I  think  that  way  of  arguing  against  a  course 
because  it  may  be  ridden  down  to  an  absurdity 
would  soon  bring  life  to  a  stand-still,"  said  De- 
ronda. "It  is  not  the  logic  of  human  action, 
but  of  a  roasting-jack,  that  must  go  on  to  the 
last  turn  when  it  has  been  once  wound  up.  We 
can  do  nothing  safely  without  some  judgment  as 
to  where  we  are  to  stop." 

"  I  find  the  rule  of  the  pocket  the  best  guide," 
said  Sir  Hugo,  laughingly.  "And  as  for  most  of 
your  new-old  building,  you  had  need  hire  men  to 
scratch  and  chip  it  all  over  artistically  to  give  it 
an  elderly-looking  surface ;  which  at  the  present 
rate  of  labor  would  not  answer." 

"Do  you  want  to  keep  up  the  old  fashions, 
then,  Mr.  Deronda  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  the  freedom  of  grouping  to  fall  back 
a  little,  while  Sir  Hugo  and  Grandcourt  went  on. 

"  Some  of  them.  I  don't  see  why  we  should 
not  use  our  choice  there  as  we  do  elsewhere,  or 
why  either  age  or  novelty  by  itself  is  an  argument 
for  or  against.  To  delight  in  doing  things  be- 
cause our  fathers  did  them  is  good  if  it  shuts  out 
nothing  better ;  it  enlarges  the  range  of  affection, 
and  affection  is  the  broadest  basis  of  good  in  life." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  little 
surprise.  "  I  should  have  thought  you  cared  most 
about  ideas,  knowledge,  wisdom,  and  all  that" 

"  But  to  care  about  them  is  a  sort  of  affection," 
said  Deronda,  smiling  at  her  sudden  naivete. 
"  Call  it  attachment,  interest,  willingness  to  bear 
a  great  deal  for  the  sake  of  being  with  them  and 
saving  them  from  injury.  Of  course  it  makes  a 
difference  if  the  objects  of  interest  are  human 
beings ;  but  generally  in  all  deep  affections  the 
objects  are  a  mixture — half  persons  and  half 
ideas  —  sentiments  and  affections  flow  in  to- 
gether." 

"I  wonder  whether  I  understand  that,"  said 
Gwendolen,  putting  up  her  chin  in  her  old  saucy 
manner.  "  I  believe  I  am  not  very  affectionate ; 
perhaps  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  is  the  reason 
why  I  don't  see  much  good  hi  life." 


142 


DAXIEL  DEROXDA. 


"No,  I  did  not  mean  to  tell  you  that;  but  I 
admit  that  I  should  think  it  true  if  I  believed 
what  you  say  of  yourself,"  said  Deronda,  gravely. 

Here  Sir  Hugo  and  Grandcourt  turned  round 
and  paused. 

"  I  never  can  get  Mr.  Deronda  to  pay  me  a  com- 
pliment," said  Gwendolen.  "  I  have  quite  a  cu- 
riosity to  see  whether  a  little  flattery  can  be  ex- 
tracted from  him." 

"  Ah !"  said  Sir  Hugo,  glancing  at  Deronda, 
"  the  fact  is,  it  is  hopeless  to  flatter  a  bride.  We 
give  it  up  in  despair.  She  has  been  so  fed  on 
sweet  speeches  that  every  thing  we  say  seems 
tasteless." 

"Quite  true,"  said  Gwendolen,  bending  her 
head  and  smiling.  "  Mr.  Grandcourt  won  me  by 
neatly  turned  compliments.  If  there  had  been 
one  word  out  of  place,  it  would  have  been  fatal." 

"  Do  you  hear  that  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo,  looking  at 
the  husband. 

"Yes,"  said  Grandcourt,  without  change  of 
countenance.  "  It  is  a  deucedly  hard  thing  to 
keep  up,  though." 

All  this  seemed  to  Sir  Hugo  a  natural  playful- 
ness between  such  a  husband  and  wife ;  but  De- 
ronda wondered  at  the  misleading  alternations  in 
Gwendolen's  manner,  which  at  one  moment  seem- 
ed to  invite  sympathy  by  child-like  indiscretion, 
at  another  to  repel  it  by  proud  concealment.  He 
tried  to  keep  out  of  her  way  by  devoting  him- 
self to  Miss  Juliet  Fenn,  a  young  lady  whose 
profile  had  been  so  unfavorably  decided  by  cir- 
cumstances over  which  she  had  no  control  that 
Gwendolen  some  months  ago  had  felt  it  impos- 
sible to  be  jealous  of  her.  Nevertheless,  when 
they  were  seeing  the  kitchen — a  part  of  the  orig- 
inal building  in  perfect  preservation — the  depth  of 
shadow  in  the  niches  of  the  stone  walls  and  groined 
vault,  the  play  of  light  from  the  huge  glowing  fire 
on  polished  tin,  brass,  and  copper,  the  fine  res- 
onance that  came  with  every  sound  of  voice  or 
metal,  were  all  spoiled  for  Gwendolen,  and  Sir 
Hugo's  speech  about  them  was  made  rather  im- 
portunate, because  Deronda  was  discoursing  to 
the  other  ladies  and  kept  at  a  distance  from  her. 
It  did  not  signify  that  the  other  gentlemen  took 
the  opportunity  of  being  near  her :  of  what  use 
in  the  world  was  their  admiration  while  she  had 
an  uneasy  sense  that  there  was  some  standard  in 
Deronda's  mind  which  measured  her  into  little- 
ness ?  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  who  had  the  mania  of 
always  describing  one  thing  while  you  were  look- 
ing at  another,  was  quite  intolerable  with  his  in- 
sistence on  Lord  Blough's  kitchen,  which  he  had 
seen  in  the  north. 

"  Pray  don't  ask  us  to  see  two  kitchens  at  once. 
It  makes  the  heat  double.  I  must  really  go  out 
of  it,"  she  cried  at  last,  marching  resolutely  into 
the  open  air,  and  leaving  the  others  in  the  rear. 
Grandcourt  was  already  out,  and  as  she  joined 
him  he  said, 

"I  wondered  how  long  you  meant  to  stay  in 
that  damned  place" — one  of  the  freedoms  he 
had  assumed  as  a  husband  being  the  use  of  his 
strongest  epithets.  Gwendolen,  turning  to  see 
the  rest  of  the  party  approach,  said, 

"It  was  certainly  rather  too  warm  in  one's 
wraps." 

They  walked  on  the  gravel  across  a  green  court, 
where  the  snow  still  lay  in  islets  on  the  grass,  and 
in  masses  on  the  boughs  of  the  great  cedar  and  the 
crenelated  coping  of  the  stone  walls,  and  then 


into  a  larger  court,  where  there  was  another  ce- 
dar, to  find  the  beautiful  choir  long  ago  turned 
into  stables,  in  the  first  instance  perhaps  after  an 
impromptu  fashion  by  troopers,  who  had  a  pious 
satisfaction  in  insulting  the  priests  of  Baal  and 
the  images  of  Ashtaroth,  the  queen  of  heaven. 
The  exterior — its  west  end,  save  for  the  stable 
door,  walled  in  with  brick  and  covered  with  ivy — 
was  much  defaced,  maimed  of  finial  and  gargoyle, 
the  friable  limestone  broken  and  fretted,  and 
lending  its  soft  gray  to  a  powdery  dark  lichen ; 
the  long  windows,  too,  were  filled  in  with  brick 
as  far  as  the  springing  of  the  arches,  the  broad 
clear-story  windows  with  wire  or  ventilating 
blinds.  With  the  low  wintry  afternoon  sun  upon 
it,  sending  shadows  from  the  cedar  boughs,  and 
lighting  up  the  touches  of  snow  remaining  on 
every  ledge,  it  had  still  a  scarcely  disturbed  as- 
pect of  antique  solemnity,  which  gave  the  scene 
in  the  interior  rather  a  startling  effect ;  though, 
ecclesiastical  or  reverential  indignation  apart,  the 
eyes  could  hardly  help  dwelling  with  pleasure  on 
its  piquant  picturesqueness.  Each  finely  arched 
chapel  was  turned  into  a  stall,  where  in  the  dusty 
glazing  of  the  windows  there  still  gleamed  patches 
of  crimson,  orange,  blue,  and  palest  violet ;  for 
the  rest,  the  choir  had  been  gutted,  the  floor  lev- 
eled, paved,  and  drained  according  to  the  most 
approved  fashion,  and  a  line  of  loose  boxes  erect- 
ed in  the  middle :  a  soft  light  fell  from  the  up- 
per windows  on  sleek  brown  or  gray  flanks  and 
haunches  ;  on  mild  equine  faces  looking  out  with 
active  nostrils  over  the  varnished  brown  boarding ; 
on  the  hay  hanging  from  racks  where  the  saints 
once  looked  down  from  the  altarpieces,  and  on 
the  pale  golden  straw  scattered  or  in  heaps ;  on 
a  little  white-and-liver-colored  spaniel  making  his 
bed  on  the  back  of  an  elderly  hackney,  and  on 
four  ancient  angels,  still  showing  signs  of  devo- 
tion like  mutilated  martyrs — while  over  all,  the 
grand  pointed  roof,  untouched  by  reforming  wash, 
showed  its  lines  and  colors  mysteriously  through 
veiling  shadow  and  cobweb,  and  a  hoof  now  and 
then  striking  against  the  boards  seemed  to  fill 
the  vault  with  thunder,  while  outside  there  was 
the  answering  bay  of  the  blood-hounds. 

"  Oh,  this  is  glorious !"  Gwendolen  burst  forth, 
in  forgetfulness  of  every  thing  but  the  immediate 
impression :  there  had  been  a  little  intoxication 
for  her  in  the  grand  spaces  of  courts  and  build- 
ing, and  the  fact  of  her  being  an  important  per- 
son among  them.  "  This  is  glorious  !  Only  I 
wish  there  were  a  horse  in  every  one  of  the 
boxes.  I  would  ten  times  rather  have  these  sta- 
bles than  those  at  Ryelands." 

But  she  had  no  sooner  said  this  than  sonic 
consciousness  arrested  her,  and  involuntarily  she 
turned  her  eyes  toward  Deronda,  who  oddly 
enough  had  taken  off  his  felt  hat,  and  stood  hold- 
ing it  before  him  as  if  they  had  entered  a  room 
or  an  actual  church.  He,  like  others,  happened 
to  be  looking  at  her,  and  their  eyes  met — to  her 
intense  vexation,  for  it  seemed  to  her  that  by 
looking  at  him  she  had  betrayed  the  reference  of 
her  thoughts,  and  she  felt  herself  blushing  :  she 
exaggerated  the  impression  that  even  Sir  Hugo 
as  well  as  Deronda  would  have  of  her  bad  taste 
in  referring  to  the  possession  of  any  thing  at  the 
Abbey :  as  for  Deronda,  she  had  probably  made 
him  despise  her.  Her  annoyance  at  what  she 
imagined  to  be  the  obviousness  of  her  confusion 
robbed  her  of  her  usual  facility  in  carrying  it  off 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


143 


by  playful  speech,  and  turning  up  her  face  to 
look  at  the  roof,  she  wheeled  away  in  that  atti- 
tude. If  any  had  noticed  her  blush  as  signifi- 
cant, they  had  certainly  not  interpreted  it  by  the 
secret  windings  and  recesses  of  her  feeling.  A 
blush  is  no  language :  only  a  dubious  flag-signal 
which  may  mean  either  of  two  contradictories. 
Deronda  alone  had  a  faint  guess  at  some  part  of 
her  feeling ;  but  while  he  was  observing  her,  he 
was  himself  under  observation. 

"  Do  you  take  off  your  hat  to  the  horses  ?"  said 
Grandcourt,  with  a  slight  sneer. 

"  Why  not  ?"  said  Deronda,  covering  himself. 
He  had  really  taken  off  the  hat  automatically, 
and  if  he  had  been  an  ugly  man,  might  doubtless 
have  done  so  with  impunity :  ugliness  having  nat- 
urally the  air  of  involuntary  exposure,  and  beau- 
ty, of  display. 

Gwendolen's  confusion  was  soon  merged  in  the 
survey  of  the  horses,  which  Grandcourt  politely 
abstained  from  appraising,  languidly  assenting  to 
Sir  Hugo's  alternate  depreciation  and  eulogy  of 
the  same  animal,  as  one  that  he  should  not  have 
bought  when  he  was  younger,  and  piqued  himself 
on  his  horses,  but  yet  one  that  had  better  quali- 
ties than  many  more  expensive  brutes. 

"The  fact  is,  stables  dive  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  pocket  nowadays,  and  I  am  very  glad  to 
have  got  rid  of  that  demanyeaison"  said  Sir  Hugo, 
as  they  were  coming  out. 

"  What  is  a  man  to  do,  though  ?"  said  Grand- 
court.  "He  must  ride.  I  don't  see  what  else 
there  is  to  do.  And  I  don't  call  it  riding  to  sit 
astride  a  set  of  brutes  with  every  deformity  under 
the  sun." 

This  delicate  diplomatic  way  of  characterizing 
Sir  Hugo's  stud  did  not  require  direct  notice ;  and 
the  Baronet  feeling  that  the  conversation  had 
worn  rather  thin,  said  to  the  party  generally, 
"  Xow  we  are  going  to  see  the  cloister — the  finest 
bit  of  all — in  perfect  preservation:  the  monks 
might  have  been  walking  there  yesterday." 

But  Gwendolen  had  lingered  behind  to  look  at 
the  kenneled  blood-hounds,  perhaps  because  she 
felt  a  little  dispirited ;  and  Grandcourt  waited  for 
her. 

"  You  had  better  take  my  arm,"  he  said,  in  his 
low  tone  of  command ;  and  she  took  it. 

"  It's  a  great  bore  being  dragged  about  in  this 
way,  and  no  cigar,"  said  Grandcourt. 

"  I  thought  you  would  like  it." 

"  Like  it  ? — one  eternal  chatter.  And  encour- 
aging those  ugly  girls — inviting  one  to  meet  such 
monsters.  How  that  fat  Deronda  can  bear  look- 
ing at  her — " 

"  Why  do  you  call  him  a  fat  ?  Do  you  object 
to  him  so  much  ?" 

"  Object  ?  no.  What  do  I  care  about  his  being 
a.  fat?  It's  of  no  consequence  to  me.  I'll  invite 
him  to  Diplow  again  if  you  like." 

"I  don't  think  he  would  come.  He  is  too 
clever  and  learned  to  care  about  MS,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, thinking  it  useful  for  her  husband  to  be 
told  (privately)  that  it  was  possible  for  him  to  be 
looked  down  upon. 

"  I  never  saw  that  make  much  difference  in  a 
man.  Either  he  is  a  gentleman,  or  he  is  not," 
said  Grandcourt. 

That  a  new  husband  and  wife  should  snatch 
a  moment's  tete-d-ttte  was  what  could  be  under- 
stood and  indulged;  and  the  rest  of  the  party 
left  them  in  the  rear  till,  re-entering  the  garden, 


they  all  paused  in  that  cloistered  court  where, 
among  the  falling  rose  petals  thirteen  years  be- 
fore, we  saw  a  boy  becoming  acquainted  with  his 
first  sorrow.  This  cloister  was  built  of  harder 
stone  than  the  church,  and  had  bean  in  greater 
safety  from  the  wearing  weather.  It  was  a  rare 
example  of  a  northern  cloister  with  arched  and 
pillared  openings  not  intended  for  glazing,  and 
the  delicately  wrought  foliage  of  the  capitals 
seemed  still  to  carry  the  very  touches  of  the 
chisel.  Gwendolen  had  dropped  her  husband's 
arm  and  joined  the  other  ladies,  to  whom  Deron- 
da was  noticing  the  delicate  sense  which  had  com- 
bined freedom  with  accuracy  in  the  imitation  of 
natural  forms. 

"  I  wonder  whether  one  of tener  learns  to  love 
real  objects  through  their  representations,  or  the 
representations  through  the  real  objects,"  he  said, 
after  pointing  out  a  lovely  capital  made  by  the 
curled  leaves  of  greens,  showing  their  reticulated 
under  side  with  the  firm  gradual  swell  of  its  cen- 
tral rib.  "When  I  was  a  little  fellow  these  cap- 
itals taught  me  to  observe,  and  delight  in,  the 
structure  of  leaves." 

"I  suppose  you  can  see  every  line  of  them 
with  your  eyes  shut,"  said  Juliet  Fenn. 

"  Yes.  I  was  always  repeating  them,  because 
for  a  good  many  years  this  court  stood  for  me 
as  my  only  image  of  a  convent,  and  whenever 
I  read  of  monks  and  monasteries,  this  was  my 
scenery  for  them." 

"  You  must  love  this  place  very  much,"  said 
Miss  Fenn,  innocently,  not  thinking  of  inherit- 
ance. "  So  many  homes  are  like  twenty  others. 
But  this  is  unique,  and  you  seem  to  know  every 
cranny  of  it.  I  dare  say  you  could  never  love 
another  home  so  well." 

"  Oh,  I  carry  it  with  me,"  said  Deronda,  quiet- 
ly, being  used  to  all  possible  phases  of  this 
thought.  "  To  most  men  their  early  home  is  no 
more  than  a  memory  of  their  early  years,  and 
I'm  not  sure  but  they  have  the  best  of  it.  The 
image  is  never  marred.  There's  no  disappoint- 
ment in  memory,  and  one's  exaggerations  are  al- 
ways on  the  good  side." 

Gwendolen  felt  sure  that  he  spoke  in  that  way 
out  of  delicacy  to  her  and  Grandcourt — because 
he  knew  they  must  hear  him ;  and  that  he  prob- 
ably thought  of  her  as  a  selfish  creature  who  only 
cared  about  possessing  things  in  her  own  person. 
But  whatever  he  might  say,  it  must  have  been  a 
secret  hardship  to  him  that  any  circumstances  of 
his  birth  had  shut  him  out  from  the  inheritance 
of  his  father's  position ;  and  if  he  supposed  that 
she  exulted  in  her  husband's  taking  it,  what 
could  he  feel  for  her  but  scornful  pity  ?  Indeed, 
it  seemed  clear  to  her  that  he  was  avoiding  her, 
and  preferred  talking  to  others — which  neverthe- 
less was  not  kind  in  him. 

With  these  thoughts  in  her  mind,  she  was  pre- 
vented by  a  mixture  of  pride  and  timidity  from 
addressing  him  again,  and  when  they  were  look- 
ing at  the  rows  of  quaint  portraits  in  the  gallery 
above  the  cloisters,  she  kept  up  her  air  of  inter- 
est and  made  her  vivacious  remarks  without  any 
direct  appeal  to  Deronda.  But  at  the  end  she 
was  very  weary  of  her  assumed  spirits,  and  as 
Grandcourt  turned  into  the  billiard-room,  she 
went  to  the  pretty  boudoir  which  had  been  as- 
signed to  her,  and  shut  herself  up  to  look  melan- 
choly at  her  ease.  No  chemical  process  shows  a 
more  wonderful  activity  than  the  transforming 


144 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


influence  of  the  thoughts  we  imagine  to  be  going 
on  in  another.  Changes  in  theory,  religion,  ad- 
mirations, may  begin  with  a  suspicion  of  dissent 
or  disapproval,  even  when  the  grounds  of  disap- 
proval are  but  matter  of  searching  conjecture. 

Poor  Gwendolen  was  conscious  of  an  uneasy, 
transforming  process — all  the  old  nature  shaken 
to  its  depths,  its  hopes  spoiled,  its  pleasures  per- 
turbed, but  still  showing  wholeness  and  strength 
in  the  will  to  re-assert  itself.  After  every  new 
shock  of  humiliation  she  tried  to  adjust  herself 
and  seize  her  old  supports— proud  concealment; 
trust  in  new  excitements  that  would  make  life  go 
by  without  much  thinking ;  trust  in  some  deed  of 
reparation  to  nullify  her  self-blame  and  shield 
her  from  a  vague,  ever-visiting  dread  of  some 
horrible  calamity ;  trust  in  the  hardening  effect 
of  use  and  wont  that  would  make  her  indifferent 
to  her  miseries. 

Yes — miseries.  This  beautiful,  healthy  young 
creature,  with  her  two-and-twenty  years  and  her 
gratified  ambition,  no  longer  felt  inclined  to  kiss 
her  fortunate  image  in  the  glass ;  she  looked  at 
it  with  wonder  that  she  could  be  so  miserable. 
One  belief  which  had  accompanied  her  through 
her  unmarried  life  as  a  self -cajoling  superstition, 
encouraged  by  the  subordination  of  every  one 
about  her — the  belief  in  her  own  power  of  domi- 
nating— was  utterly  gone.  Already,  in  seven  short 
weeks,  which  seemed  half  her  life,  her  husband 
had  gained  a  mastery  which  she  could  no  more 
resist  than  she  could  have  resisted  the  benumb- 
ing effect  from  the  touch  of  a  torpedo.  Gwen- 
dolen's will  had  seemed  imperious  in  its  small 
girlish  sway;  but  it  was  the  will  of  a  creature 
with  a  large  discourse  of  imaginative  fears:  a 
shadow  would  have  been  enough  to  relax  its  hold. 
And  she  had  found  a  will  like  that  of  a  crab  or 
a  boa-constrictor  which  goes  on  pinching  or  crush- 
ing without  alarm  at  thunder.  Not  that  Grand- 
court  was  without  calculation  of  the  intangible 
effects  which  were  the  chief  means  of  mastery ; 
indeed,  he  had  a  surprising  acuteness  in  detect- 
ing that  situation  of  feeling  in  Gwendolen  which 
made  her  proud  and  rebellious  spirit  dumb  and 
helpless  before  him. 

She  had  burned  Lydia  Glasher's  letter  with  an 
instantaneous  terror  lest  other  eyes  should  see  it, 
and  had  tenaciously  concealed  from  Grandcourt 
that  there  was  any  other  cause  of  her  violent  hys- 
terics than  the  excitement  and  fatigue  of  the  day : 
she  had  been  urged  into  an  implied  falsehood. 
"  Don't  ask  me — it  was  my  feeling  about  every 
thing — it  was  the  sudden  change  from  home." 
The  words  of  that  letter  kept  repeating  them- 
selves, and  hung  on  her  consciousness  with  the 
weight  of  a  prophetic  doom.  "  I  am  the  grave 
in  which  your  chance  of  happiness  is  buried  as 
well  as  mine.  You  had  your  warning.  You  have 
chosen  to  injure  me  and  my  children.  He  had 
meant  to  marry  me.  He  would  have  married  me 
at  last,  if  you  had  not  broken  your  word.  You 
will  have  your  punishment.  I  desire  it  with  all 
my  soul.  Will  you  give  him  this  letter  to  set 
him  against  me  and  ruin  us  more — me  and  my 
children?  Shall  you  like  to  stand  before  your 
husband  with  these  diamonds  on  you,  and  these 
words  of  mine  in  his  thoughts  and  yours  ?  Will 
he  think  you  have  any  right  to  complain  when 
he  has  made  you  miserable  ?  You  took  him  with 
your  eyes  open.  The  willing  wrong  you  have 
done  me  will  be  your  curse." 


The  words  had  nestled  their  venomous  life 
within  her,  and  stirred  continually  the  vision  of 
the  scene  at  the  Whispering  Stones.  That  scene 
was  now  like  an  accusing  apparition :  she  dread- 
ed that  Grandcourt  should  know  of  it — so  far 
out  of  her  sight  now  was  that  possibility  she  had 
once  satisfied  herself  with,  of  speaking  to  him 
about  Mrs.  Glasher  and  her  children,  and  making 
them  rich  amends.  Any  endurance  seemed  easi- 
er than  the  mortal  humiliation  of  confessing  that 
she  knew  all  before  she  married  him,  and  in  mar- 
rying him  had  broken  her  word.  For  the  reasons 
by  which  she  had  justified  herself  when  the  mar- 
riage tempted  her,  and  all  her  easy  arrangement 
of  her  future  power  over  her  husband  to  make 
him  do  better  than  he  might  be  inclined  to  do, 
were  now  as  futile  as  the  burned-out  lights  which 
set  off  a  child's  pageant.  Her  sense  of  being 
blameworthy  was  exaggerated  by  a  dread  both 
definite  and  vague.  The  definite  dread  was  lest 
the  veil  of  secrecy  should  fall  between  her  and 
Grandcourt,  and  give  him  the  right  to  taunt  her. 
With  the  reading  of  that  letter  had  begun  her 
husband's  empire  of  fear. 

And  her  husband  all  the  while  knew  it.  He 
had  not,  indeed,  any  distinct  knowledge  of  her 
broken  promise,  and  would  not  have  rated  highly 
the  effect  of  that  breach  on  her  conscience ;  but 
he  was  aware  not  only  of  what  Lush  had  told 
him  about  the  meeting  at  the  Whispering  Stones, 
but  also  of  Gwendolen's  concealment  as  to  the 
cause  of  her  sudden  illness.  He  felt  sure  that 
Lydia  had  inclosed  something  with  the  diamonds; 
and  that  this  something,  whatever  it  was,  had  at 
once  created  in  Gwendolen  a  new  repulsion  for 
him  and  a  reason  for  not  daring  to  manifest  it. 
He  did  not  greatly  mind,  or  feel  as  many  men 
might  have  felt,  that  his  hopes  in  marriage  were 
blighted :  he  had  wanted  to  marry  Gwendolen, 
and  he  was  not  a  man  to  repent.  Why  should 
a  gentleman  whose  other  relations  in  life  are  car- 
ried on  without  the  luxury  of  sympathetic  feeling 
be  supposed  to  require  that  kind  of  condiment 
n  domestic  life  ?  What  he  chiefly  felt  was  that 
a  change  had  come  over  the  conditions  of  his 
mastery,  which,  far  from  shaking  it,  might  estab- 
lish it  the  more  thoroughly.  And  it  was  estab- 
lished. He  judged  that  he  had  not  married  a 
simpleton  unable  to  perceive  the  impossibility  of 
escape,  or  to  see  alternative  evils :  he  had  mar- 
ried a  girl  who  had  spirit  and  pride  enough  not 
to  make  a  fool  of  herself  by  forfeiting  all  the 
advantages  of  a  position  which  had  attracted 
her;  and  if  she  wanted  pregnant  hints  to  help 
her  in  making  up  her  mind  properly,  he  would 
take  care  not  to  withhold  them. 

Gwendolen,  indeed,  with  all  that  gnawing  trou- 
ble in  her  consciousness,  had  hardly  for  a  moment 
dropped  the  sense  that  it  was  her  part  to  bear 
herself  with  dignity,  and  appear  what  is  called 
happy.  In  disclosure  of  disappointment  or  sor- 
row she  saw  nothing  but  a  humiliation  which 
would  have  been  vinegar  to  her  wounds.  What- 
ever her  husband  might  come  at  last  to  be  to  her, 
she  meant  to  wear  the  yoke  so  as  not  to  be  pitied. 
For  she  did  think  of  the  coming  years  with  pre- 
sentiment: she  was  frightened  at  Grandcourt. 
The  poor  thing  had  from  her  girlish  sauciness  of 
superiority  passed  over  this  inert  specimen  of 
personal  distinction  into  an  amazed  perception 
of  her  former  ignorance  about  the  possible  men- 
tal attitude  of  a  man  toward  the  woman  he  sought 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


115 


in  marriage — of  her  present  ignorance  as  to  what 
their  life  with  each  other  might  turn  into.  For 
novelty  gives  immeasurableness  to  fear,  and  fills 
the  early  time  of  all  sad  changes  with  phantoms 
of  the  future.  Her  little  coquetries,  voluntary  or 
involuntary,  had  told  on  Grandcourt  during  court- 
ship, and  formed  a  medium  of  communication 
between  them,  showing  him  in  the  light  of  a 
creature  such  as  she  could  understand  and  man- 
age: but  marriage  had  nullified  all  such  inter- 
change, and  Grandcourt  had  become  a  blank  un- 
certainty to  her  in  every  thing  but  this,  that  he 
would  do  just  what  he  willed,  and  that  she  had 
neither  devices  at  her  command  to  determine  his 
will  nor  any  rational  means  of  escaping  it. 

What  had  occurred  between  them  about  her 
wearing  the  diamonds  was  typical.  One  evening, 
shortly  before  they  came  to  the  Abbey,  they  were 
going  to  dine  at  Brackenshaw  Castle.  Gwendolen 
had  said  to  herself  that  she  would  never  wear 
those  diamonds :  they  had  horrible  words  cling- 
ing and  crawling  about  them,  as  from  some  bad 
dream,  whose  images  lingered  on  the  perturbed 
sense.  She  came  down  dressed  in  her  white, 
with  only  a  streak  of  gold  and  a  pendant  of  eme- 
ralds, which  Grandcourt  had  given  her,  round  her 
neck,  and  little  emerald  stars  in  her  ears. 

Grandcourt  stood  with  his  back  to  the  fire  and 
looked  at  her  as  she  entered. 

"  Am  I  altogether  as  you  like  ?"  she  said,  speak- 
ing rather  gayly.  She  was  not  without  enjoy- 
ment in  this  occasion  of  going  to  Brackenshaw 
Castle  with  her  new  dignities  upon  her,  as  men 
whose  affairs  are  sadly  involved  will  enjoy  dining 
out  among  persons  likely  to  be  under  a  pleasant 
mistake  about  them. 

"No,"  said  Grandcourt. 

Gwendolen  felt  suddenly  uncomfortable,  won- 
dering what  was  to  come.  She  was  not  unpre- 
pared for  some  struggle  about  the  diamonds ;  but 
suppose  he  were  going  to  say,  in  low  contemptu- 
ous tones,  "  You  are  not  in  any  way  what  I  like." 
It  was  very  bad  for  her  to  be  secretly  hating  him ; 
but  it  would  be  much  worse  when  he  gave  the 
first  sign  of  hating  her. 

"  Oh,  mercy !"  she  exclaimed,  the  pause  lasting 
till  she  could  bear  it  no  longer.  "  How  am  I  to 
alter  myself?" 

"  Put  on  the  diamonds,  said  Grandcourt,  look- 
ing straight  at  her  with  his  narrow  glance. 

Gwendolen  paused  in  her  turn,  afraid  of  show- 
ing any  emotion,  and  feeling  that  nevertheless 
there  was  some  change  in  her  eyes  as  they  met 
his.  But  she  was  obliged  to  answer,  and  said, 
as  indifferently  as  she  could,  "  Oh,  please  not.  I 
don't  think  diamonds  suit  me." 

"  What  you  think  has  nothing  to  do  with  it," 
said  Grandcourt,  his  sotto  voce  imperiousness  seem- 
ing to  have  an  evening  quietude  and  finish,  like 
his  toilet.  "  I  wish  you  to  wear  the  diamonds." 

"  Pray  excuse  me ;  I  like  these  emeralds,"  said 
Gwendolen,  frightened  in  spite  of  her  prepara- 
tion. That  white  hand  of  his  which  was  touching 
his  whisker  was  capable,  she  fancied,  of  clinging 
round  her  neck  and  threatening  to  throttle  her ; 
for  her  fear  of  him,  mingling  with  the  vague 
foreboding  of  some  retributive  calamity  which 
hung  about  her  life,  had  reached  a  superstitious 
point. 

"  Oblige  me  by  telling  me  your  reason  for  not 
wearing  the  diamonds  when  I  desire  it,"  said 
Grandcourt.  His  eyes  were  still  fixed  upon  her, 


and  she  felt  her  own  eyes  narrowing  under  them 
as  if  to  shut  out  an  entering  pain. 

Of  what  use  was  the  rebellion  within  her  ?  She 
could  say  nothing  that  would  not  hurt  her  worse 
than  submission.  Turning  slowly  and  covering 
herself  again,  she  went  to  her  dressing-room.  As 
she  reached  out  the  diamonds,  it  occurred  to  her 
that  her  unwillingness  to  wear  them  might  have 
already  raised  a  suspicion  in  Grandcourt  that  she 
had  some  knowledge  about  them  which  he  had 
not  given  her.  She  fancied  that  his  eyes  showed 
a  delight  in  torturing  her.  How  could  she  be  de- 
fiant ?  She  had  nothing  to  say  that  would  touch 
him — nothing  but  what  would  give  him  a  more 
painful  grasp  on  her  consciousness. 

"  He  delights  in  making  the  dogs  and  horses 
quail :  that  is  half  his  pleasure  in  calling  them 
his,"  she  said  to  herself,  as  she  opened  the  jewel- 
case  with  a  shivering  sensation.  "  It  will  come 
to  be  so  with  me ;  and  I  shall  quail.  What  else 
is  there  for  me  ?  I  will  not  say  to  the  world, 
'  Pity  me.' " 

She  was  about  to  ring  for  her  maid,  when  she 
heard  the  door  open  behind  her.  It  was  Grand- 
court  who  came  in. 

"  You  want  some  one  to  fasten  them,"  he  said, 
coming  toward  her. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  simply  stood  still,  leav- 
ing him  to  take  out  the  ornaments  and  fasten 
them  as  he  would.  Doubtless  he  had  been  used 
to  fasten  them  on  some  one  else.  With  a  bit- 
ter sort  of  sarcasm  against  herself,  Gwendolen 
thought, "  What  a  privilege  this  is,  to  have  robbed 
another  woman  of !" 

"  What  makes  you  so  cold  ?"  said  Grandcourt, 
when  he  had  fastened  the  last  ear-ring.  "  Pray 
put  plenty  of  furs  on.  I  hate  to  see  a  woman 
come  into  a  room  looking  frozen.  If  you  are  to 
appear  as  a  bride  at  all,  appear  decently." 

This  marital  speech  was  not  exactly  persuasive, 
but  it  touched  the  quick  of  Gwendolen's  pride, 
and  forced  her  to  rally.  The  words  of  the  bad 
dream  crawled  about  the  diamonds  still,  but  only 
for  her :  to  others  they  were  brilliants  that  suit- 
ed her  perfectly,  and  Grandcourt  inwardly  ob- 
served that  she  answered  to  the  rein. 

"Oh  yes,  mamma,  quite  happy,"  Gwendolen 
had  said  on  her  return  to  Diplow.  "  Not  at  all 
disappointed  in  Ryelands.  It  is  a  much  finer 
place  than  this — larger  in  every  way.  But  don't 
you  want  some  more  money  ?" 

"  Did  you  not  know  that  Mr.  Grandcourt  left 
me  a  letter  on  your  wedding-day  ?  I  am  to  have 
eight  hundred  a  year.  He  wishes  me  to  keep 
Offendene  for  the  present,  while  you  are  at  Dip- 
low.  But  if  there  were  some  pretty  cottage  near 
the  park  at  Ryelands,  we  might  live  there  with- 
out much  expense,  and  I  should  have  you  most  of 
the  year,  perhaps." 

"  We  must  leave  that  to  Mr.  Grandcourt,  mam- 
ma." 

"  Oh,  certainly.  It  is  exceedingly  handsome  of 
him  to  say  that  he  will  pay  the  rent  for  Offendene 
till  June.  And  we  can  go  on  very  well — without 
any  man-servant  except  Crane,  just  for  out-of- 
doors.  Our  good  Merry  will  stay  with  us,  and 
help  me  to  manage  every  thing.  It  is  natural  that 
Mr.  Grandcourt  should  wish  me  to  live  in  a  good 
style  of  house  in  your  neighborhood,  and  I  can  not 
decline.  So  he  said  nothing  about  it  to  you  ?" 

"  No ;  he  wished  me  to  hear  it  from  you,  I  sup- 
pose." 


146 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


nothing  but  relations  belonging  to  her." 
court  was  smoking,  and  only  said,  care- 


Gwendolen, in  fact,  had  been  very  anxious  to 
have  some  definite  knowledge  of  what  would  be 
done  for  her  mother,  but  at  no  moment  since  her 
marriage  had  she  been  able  to  overcome  the  dif- 
ficulty of  mentioning  the  subject  to  Grandcourt. 
Now,  however,  she  had  a  sense  of  obligation  which 
would  not  let  her  rest  without  saying  to  him,  "  It 
is  very  good  of  you  to  provide  for  mamma.  You 
took  a  great  deal  on  yourself  in  marrying  a  girl 
who  had  not 

Grandcourt 

lessly,  "  Of  course  I  was  not  going  to  let  her  live 
like  a  gamekeeper's  mother." 

"  At  least  he  is  not  mean  about  money,"  thought 
Gwendolen,  "and  mamma  is  the  better  off  for 
my  marriage." 

She  often  pursued  the  comparison  between 
what  might  have  been,  if  she  had  not  married 
Grandcourt,  and  what  actually  was,  trying  to  per- 
euade  herself  that  life  generally  was  barren  of 
satisfaction,  and  that  if  she  had  chosen  different- 
ly, she  might  now  have  been  looking  back  with  a 
regret  as  bitter  as  the  feeling  she  was  trying  to 
argue  away.  Her  mother's  dullness,  which  used 
to  irritate  her,  she  was  at  present  inclined  to  ex- 
plain as  the  ordinary  result  of  women's  experience. 
True,  she  still  saw  that  she  would  "  manage  differ- 
ently from  mamma  ;"  but  her  management  now 
only  meant  that  she  would  carry  her  troubles  with 
spirit,  and  let  none  suspect  them.  By-and-by  she 
promised  herself  that  she  should  get  used  to  her 
heart-sores,  and  find  excitements  that  would  car- 
ry her  through  life,  as  a  hard  gallop  carried  her 
through  some  of  the  morning  hours.  There  was 
gambling  :  she  had  heard  stories  at  Leubronn  of 
fashionable  women  who  gambled  in  all  sorts  of 
ways.  It  seemed  very  flat  to  her  at  this  distance, 
but  perhaps  if  she  began  to  gamble  again,  the  pas- 
sion might  awake.  Then  there  was  the  pleasure  of 
producing  an  effect  by  her  appearance  in  society  : 
what  did  celebrated  beauties  do  in  town  when 
their  husbands  could  afford  display?  All  men 
were  fascinated  by  them  :  they  had  a  perfect  equi- 
page and  toilet,  walked  into  public  places,  and 
bowed,  and  made  the  usual  answers,  and  walked 
out  again  :  perhaps  they  bought  china,  and  prac- 
ticed accomplishments.  If  she  could  only  feel  a 
keen  appetite  for  those  pleasures  —  could  only  be- 
lieve in  pleasure  as  she  used  to  do  !  Accomplish- 
ments had  ceased  to  have  the  exciting  quality  of 
promising  any  pre-eminence  to  her;  and  as  for 
fascinated  gentlemen  —  adorers  who  might  hover 
round  her  with  languishment,  and  diversify  mar- 
ried life  with  the  romantic  stir  of  mystery,  passion, 
and  danger  which  her  French  reading  had  given 
her  some  girlish  notion  of  —  they  presented  them- 
selves to  her  imagination  with  the  fatal  circum- 
stance that,  instead  of  fascinating  her  in  return, 
they  were  clad  in  her  own  weariness  and  disgust. 
The  admiring  male,  rashly  adjusting  the  expres- 
sion of  his  features  and  the  turn  of  his  conversa- 
tion to  her  supposed  tastes,  had  always  been  an 
absurd  object  to  her,  and  at  present  seemed  rath- 
er detestable.  Many  courses  are  actually  pursued 
—  follies  and  sins  both  convenient  and  incon- 
venient —  without  pleasure  or  hope  of  pleasure  ; 
but  to  solace  ourselves  with  imagining  any  course 
beforehand,  there  must  be  some  foretaste  of 
pleasure  in  the  shape  of  appetite  ;  and  Gwendo- 
len's appetite  had  sickened.  Let  her  wander 
over  the  possibilities  of  her  life  as  she  would,  an 
uncertain  shadow  dogged  her.  Ilcr  confidence  in 


herself  and  her  destiny  had  turned  into  remorse 
and  dread ;  she  trusted  neither  herself  nor  her 
future. 

This  hidden  helplessness  gave  fresh  force  to 
the  hold  Deronda  had  from  the  first  taken  on  her 
mind,  as  one  who  had  an  unknown  standard  by 
which  he  judged  her.  Had  he  some  way  of  look- 
ing at  things  which  might  be  a  new  footing  for 
her — an  inward  safeguard  against  possible  events 
which  she  dreaded  as  stored-up  retribution  ?  It 
is  one  of  the  secrets  in  that  change  of  mental 
poise  which  has  been  fitly  named  conversion,  that 
to  many  among  us  neither  heaven  nor  earth  has 
any  revelation  till  some  personality  touches  theirs 
with  a  peculiar  influence,  subduing  them  into  re- 
ceptiveness.  It  had  been  Gwendolen's  habit  to 
think  of  the  persons  around  her  as  stale  books, 
too  familiar  to  be  interesting.  Deronda  had  lit 
up  her  attention  with  a  sense  of  novelty :  not  by 
words  only,  but  by  imagined  facts,  his  influence 
had  entered  into  the  current  of  that  self-suspicion 
and  self-blame  which  awakens  a  new  conscious- 

"  I  wish  he  could  know  every  thing  about  me 
without  my  telling  him,"  was  one  of  her  thoughts, 
as  she  sat  leaning  over  the  end  of  a  couch,  sup- 
porting her  head  with  her  hand,  and  looking  at 
herself  in  a  mirror — not  in  admiration,  but  in  a 
sad  kind  of  companionship.  "I  wish  he  knew 
that  I  am  not  so  contemptible  as  he  thinks  me — 
that  I  am  in  deep  trouble,  and  want  to  be  some- 
thing better  if  I  could."  Without  the  aid  of 
sacred  ceremony  or  costume,  her  feelings  had 
turned  this  man,  only  a  few  years  older  than  her- 
self, into  a  priest — a  sort  of  trust  less  rare  than 
the  fidelity  that  guards  it.  Young  reverence  for 
one  who  is  also  young  is  the  most  coercive  of  all : 
there  is  the  same  level  of  temptation,  and  the 
higher  motive  is  believed  in  as  a  fuller  force — 
not  suspected  to  be  a  mere  residue  from  weary 
experience. 

But  the  coercion  is  often  stronger  on  the  one 
who  takes  the  reverence.  Those  who  trust  us 
educate  us.  And  perhaps  in  that  ideal  consecra- 
tion of  Gwendolen's,  some  education  was  being 
prepared  for  Deronda. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

"  Ricn  ne  pfiee  tant  qu'un  secret ; 
Le  porter  loin  est  difficile  anx  dames : 
Ki  je  Bfaia  mesine  sur  <•<>  fait 
Bon  nombru  d'hommes  qni  sont  fetnmes." 

—LA  FONTAINR. 

MEANWHILE  Deronda  had  been  fastened  and  led 
off  by  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  who  wished  for  a  brisker 
walk,  a  cigar,  and  a  little  gossip.  Since  we  can 
not  tell  a  man  his  own  secrets,  the  restraint  of 
being  in  his  company  often  breeds  a  desire  to 
pair  off  in  conversation  with  some  more  ignorant 
person,  and  Mr.  Vandernoodt  presently  said : 

"  Wliat  a  washed-out  piece  of  cambric  Grand- 
court  is  !  But  if  he  is  a  favorite  of  yours,  I  with- 
draw the  remark." 

"  Not  the  least  in  the  world,"  said  Deronda. 

"I  thought  not.  One  wonders  how  he  came 
to  have  a  great  passion  again ;  and  he  must  have 
had — to  marry  in  this  way.  Though  Lush,  his 
old  chum,  hints  that  he  married  this  girl  out  of 
obstinacy.  By  George !  it  was  a  very  accountable 
obstinacy.  A  man  might  make  up  his  mind  to 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAL 


147 


marry  her  without  the  stimulus  of  contradiction. 
But  he  must  have  made  himself  a  pretty  large 
drain  of  money,  eh  ?" 

"  I  know  nothing  of  his  affairs." 

"What!  not  of  the  other  establishment  he 
keeps  up  ?" 

"Diplow?  Of  course.  He  took  that  of  Sir 
Hugo.  But  merely  for  the  year." 

"  No,  no :  not  Diplow ;  Gadsmere.  Sir  Hugo 
knows,  I'll  answer  for  it." 

Deronda  said  nothing.  He  really  began  to  feel 
some  curiosity,  but  he  foresaw  that  he  should 
hear  what  Mr.  Vandernoodt  had  to  tell,  without 
the  condescension  of  asking. 

"Lush  would  not  altogether  own  to  it,  of  course. 
He's  a  confidant  and  go-between  of  Grandcourt's. 
But  I  have  it  on  the  best  authority.  The  fact  is, 
there's  another  lady  with  four  children  at  Gads- 
mere.  She  has  had  the  upper  hand  of  him  these 
ten  years  and  more,  and  by  what  I  can  under- 
stand has  it  still — left  her  husband  for  him,  and 
used  to  travel  with  him  every  where.  Her  hus- 
band's dead  now :  I  found  a  fellow  who  was  in 
the  same  regiment  with  him,  and  knew  this  Mrs. 
Glasher  before  she  took  wing.  A  fiery  dark-eyed 
woman— a  noted  beauty  at  that  tune — he  thought 
she  was  dead.  They  say  she  has  Grandcourt  un- 
der her  thumb  still,  and  it's  a  wonder  he  didn't 
marry  her,  for  there's  a  very  fine  boy,  and  I  under- 
stand Grandcourt  can  do  absolutely  as  he  pleases 
with  the  estates.  Lush  told  me  as  much  as  that." 

"  What  right  had  he  to  marry  this  girl  ?"  said 
Deronda,  with  disgust. 

Mr.  Vandernoodt,  adjusting  the  end  of  his  ci- 
gar, shrugged  his  shoulders  and  put  out  his  lips. 

"  She  can  know  nothing  of  it,"  said  Deronda, 
emphatically.  But  that  positive  statement  was 
immediately  followed  by  an  inward  query — 
"  Could  she  have  known  any  thing  of  it  ?" 

"  It's  rather  a  piquant  picture,"  said  Mr.  Van- 
dernoodt— "  Grandcourt  between  two  fiery  wom- 
en. For  depend  upon  it  this  light-haired  one  has 
plenty  of  devil  in  her.  I  formed  that  opinion  of 
her  at  Leubronn.  It's  a  sort  of  Medea  and  Creiisa 
business.  Fancy  the  two  meeting !  Grandcourt 
is  a  new  kind  of  Jason :  I  wonder  what  sort  of  a 
part  he'll  make  of  it.  It's  a  dog's  part  at  best. 
I  think  I  hear  Ristori  now,  saying, '  Jasone !  Ja- 
sone !'  These  fine  women  generally  get  hold  of 
a  stick." 

"  Grandcourt  can  bite,  I  fancy,"  said  Deronda. 
"  He  is  no  stick." 

"  No,  no ;  I  meant  Jason.  I  can't  quite  make 
out  Grandcourt.  But  he's  a  keen  fellow  enough 
— uncommonly  well  built  too.  And  if  he  comes 
into  all  this  property,  the  estates  will  bear  divid- 
ing. This  girl,  whose  friends  had  come  to  beg- 
gary, I  understand,  may  think  herself  lucky  to 
get  him.  I  don't  want  to  be  hard  on  a  man  be- 
cause he  gets  involved  in  an  affair  of  that  sort. 
But  he  might  make  himself  more  agreeable.  I 
was  telling  him  a  capital  story  last  night,  and  he 
got  up  and  walked  away  in  the  middle.  I  felt 
inclined  to  kick  him.  Do  you  suppose  that  is 
inattention  or  insolence,  now  ?" 

"Oh,  a  mixture.  He  generally  observes  the 
forms ;  but  he  doesn't  listen  much,"  said  Deron- 
da. Then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  he  went  on, 
"  I  should  think  there  must  be  some  exaggeration 
or  inaccuracy  in  what  you  have  heard  about  this 
lady  at  Gadsmere." 

"  Not  a  bit,  depend  upon  it ;  it  has  all  lain  snug 


of  late  years.  People  have  forgotten  all  about 
it  But  there  the  nest  is,  and  the  birds  are  in  it 
And  I  know  Grandcourt  goes  there.  I  have  good 
evidence  that  he  goes  there.  However,  that's  no- 
body's business  but  his  own.  The  affair  has  sunk 
below  the  surface." 

"I  wonder  you  could  have  learned  so  much 
about  it,"  said  Deronda,  rather  dryly. 

"  Oh,  there  are  plenty  of  people  who  knew  all 
about  it ;  but  such  stories  get  packed  away  like 
old  letters.  They  interest  me.  I  like  to  know 
the  manners  of  my  time — contemporary  gossip, 
not  antediluvian.  These  Dryasdust  fellows  get  a 
reputation  by  raking  up  some  small  scandal  about 
Semiramis  or  Nitocris,  and  then  we  have  a  thou- 
sand and  one  poems  written  upon  it  by  all  the 
warblers,  big  and  little.  But  I  don't  care  a  straw 
about  the  faux  pas  of  the  mummies.  You  do, 
though.  You  are  one  of  the  historical  men — 
more  interested  in  a  lady  when  she's  got  a  rag 
face  and  skeleton  toes  peeping  out.  Does  that 
flatter  your  imagination  ?" 

"  Well,  if  she  had  any  woes  in  her  love,  one 
has  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  she's  well 
out  of  them." 

"  Ah,  you  are  thinking  of  the  Medea,  I  see." 

Deronda  then  chose  to  point  to  some  giant  oaks 
worth  looking  at  in  their  bareness.  He  also  felt 
an  interest  hi  this  piece  of  contemporary  gossip, 
but  he  was  satisfied  that  Mr.  Vandernoodt  had 
no  more  to  tell  about  it. 

Since  the  early  days  when  he  tried  to  construct 
the  hidden  story  of  his  own  birth,  his  mind  had 
perhaps  never  been  so  active  in  weaving  proba- 
bilities about  any  private  affair  as  it  had  now  be- 
gun to  be  about  Gwendolen's  marriage.  This 
unavowed  relation  of  Grandcourt's  —  could  she 
have  gained  some  knowledge  of  it,  which  caused 
her  to  shrink  from  the  toatch — a  shrinking  final- 
ly overcome  by  the  urgence  of  poverty?  He 
could  recall  almost  every  word  she  had  said  to 
him,  and  in  certain  of  these  words  he  seemed  to 
discern  that  she  was  conscious  of  having  done 
some  wrong — inflicted  some  injury.  His  own 
acute  experience  made  him  alive  to  the  form  of 
injury  which  might  affect  the  unavowed  children 
and  their  mother.  Was  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  under 
all  her  determined  show  of  satisfaction,  gnawed 
by  a  double,  a  treble  headed  grief — self-reproach, 
disappointment,  jealousy?  He  dwelt  especially 
on  all  the  slight  signs  of  self-reproach:  he  was 
inclined  to  judge  her  tenderly,  to  excuse,  to  pity. 
He  thought  he  had  found  a  key  now  by  which  to 
interpret  her  more  clearly:  what  magnifying  of 
her  misery  might  not  a  young  creature  get  into 
who  had  wedded  her  fresh  hopes  to  old  secrets ! 
He  thought  he  saw  clearly  enough  now  why  Sir 
Hugo  had  never  dropped  any  hint  of  this  affair 
to  him ;  and  immediately  the  image  of  this  Mrs. 
Glasher  became  painfully  associated  with  his  own 
hidden  birth.  Gwendolen  knowing  of  that  wom- 
an and  her  children,  marrying  Grandcourt,  and 
showing  herself  contented,  would  have  been 
among  the  most  repulsive  of  beings  to  him ;  but 
Gwendolen  tasting  the  bitterness  of  remorse  for 
having  contributed  to  their  injury  was  brought 
very  near  to  his  fellow-feeling.  If  it  were  so,  she 
had  got  to  a  common  plane  of  understanding  with 
him  on  some  difficulties  of  life  which  a  woman 
is  rarely  able  to  judge  of  with  any  justice  or  gen- 
erosity ;  for,  according  to  precedent,  Gwendolen's 
view  of  her  position  might  easily  have  been  no 


143 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


other  than  that  her  husband's  marriage  with  her 
was  his  entrance  on  the  path  of  virtue,  while  Mrs. 
Glasher  represented  his  forsaken  sin.  And  De- 
ronda  had  naturally  some  resentment  on  behalf 
of  the  Hagars  and  Ishmaels. 

Undeniably  Deronda's  growing  solicitude  about 
Gwendolen  depended  chiefly  on  her  peculiar  man- 
ner toward  him ;  and  I  suppose  neither  man  nor 
woman  would  be  the  better  for  an  utter  insensi- 
bility to  such  appeals.  One  sign  that  his  interest 
in  her  had  changed  its  footing  was  that  he  dis- 
missed any  caution  against  her  being  a  coquette 
setting  snares  to  involve  him  in  a  vulgar  flirtation, 
and  determined  that  he  would  not  again  evade 
any  opportunity  of  talking  with  her.  He  had 
shaken  off  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  and  got  into  a  soli- 
tary corner  in  the  twilight ;  but  half  an  hour  was 
long  enough  to  think  of  those  possibilities  in 
Gwendolen's  position  and  state  of  mind ;  and  on 
forming  the  determination  not  to  avoid  her,  he 
remembered  that  she  was  likely  to  be  at  tea  with 
the  other  ladies  in  the  drawing-room.  The  con- 
jecture was  true ;  for  Gwendolen,  after  resolving 
not  to  go  down  again  for  the  next  four  hours, 
began  to  feel,  at  the  end  of  one,  that  in  shutting 
herself  up  she  missed  all  chances  of  seeing  and 
hearing,  and  that  her  visit  would  only  last  two 
days  more.  She  adjusted  herself,  put  on  her  lit- 
tle air  of  self-possession,  and  going  down,  made 
herself  resolutely  agreeable.  Only  ladies  were  as- 
sembled, and  Lady  Pentreath  was  amusing  them 
with  a  description  of  a  drawing-room  under  the 
,  Regency,  and  the  figure  that  was  cut  by  ladies 
and  gentlemen  in  1819,  the  year  she  was  pre- 
sented— when  Deronda  entered. 

"  Shall  I  be  acceptable  ?"  he  said.  "  Perhaps 
I  had  better  go  back  and  look  for  the  others.  I 
suppose  they  are  in  the  billiard-room." 

"  No,  no ;  stay  where  you  are,"  said  Lady  Pent- 
reath. "  They  were  all  getting  tired  of  me ;  let 
us  hear  what  you  have  to  say." 

"  That  is  rather  an  embarrassing  appeal,"  said 
Deronda,  drawing  up  a  chair  near  Lady  Mal- 
linger's  elbow  at  the  tea-table.  "  I  think  I  had 
better  take  the  opportunity  of  mentioning  our 
songstress,"  he  added,  looking  at  Lady  Mallinger 
— "  unless  you  have  done  so." 

"  Oh,  the  little  Jewess !"  said  Lady  Mallingcr. 
"  No,  I  have  not  mentioned  her.  It  never  en- 
tered my  head  that  any  one  here  wanted  singing 
lessons." 

"All  ladies  know  some  one  else  who  wants 
singing  lessons,"  said  Deronda.  "I  have  hap- 
pened to  find  an  exquisite  singer" — here  he  turn- 
ed to  Lady  Pentreath.  "  She  is  living  with  some 
ladies  who  are  friends  of  mine — the  mother  and 
sisters  of  a  man  who  was  my  chum  at  Cambridge. 
She  was  on  the  stage  at  Vienna ;  but  she  wants  to 
leave  that  life,  and  maintain  herself  by  teaching." 

"There  are  swarms  of  those  people,  aren't 
there  ?"  said  the  old  lady.  "  Are  her  lessons  to 
be  very  cheap  or  very  expensive  ?  Those  are  the 
two  baits  I  know  of." 

"There  is  another  bait  for  those  who  hear 
her,"  said  Deronda.  "  Her  singing  is  something 
quite  exceptional,  I  think.  She  has  had  such 
first-rate  teaching — or  rather  first-rate  instinct 
with  her  teaching — that  you  might  imagine  her 
singing  all  came  by  nature." 

"  Why  did  she  leave  the  stage,  then  ?"  said 
Lady  Pentreath.  "  I'm  too  old  to  believe  in  first- 
rate  people  giving  up  first-rate  chances." 


Her  voice  was  too  weak.  It  is  a  delicious 
voice  for  a  room.  You  who  put  up  with  my  sing- 
ing of  Schubert  would  be  enchanted  with  hers," 
said  Deronda,  looking  at  Mrs.  Raymond.  "  And 
I  imagine  she  would  not  object  to  sing  at  private 
parties  or  concerts.  Her  voice  is  quite  equaj  to 
that." 

"  I  am  to  have  her  in  my  drawing-room  when 
we  go  up  to  town,"  said  Lady  Mallinger.  "  You 
shall  hear  her  then.  I  have  not  heard  her  my- 
self yet ;  but  I  trust  Daniel's  recommendation.  I 
mean  my  girls  to  have  lessons  of  her." 

Is  it  a  charitable  affair  ?"  said  Lady  Pentreath. 
"  I  can't  bear  charitable  music." 

Lady  Mallinger,  who  was  rather  helpless  in  con- 
versation, and  felt  herself  under  an  engagement 
not  to  tell  any  thing  of  Mirah's  story,  had  an 
embarrassed  smile  on  her  face,  and  glanced  at 
Deronda. 

I  It  is  a  charity  to  those  who  want  to  have  a 
good  model  of  feminine  singing,"  said  Deronda. 
"  I  think  every  body  who  has  ears  would  benefit 
by  a  little  improvement  on  the  ordinary  style.    If 
you  heard  Miss  Lapidoth" — here  he  looked  at 
Gwendolen — "perhaps  you  would  revoke  your 
resolution  to  give  up  singing." 

I 1  should  rather  think  my  resolution  would  be 
confirmed,"  said  Gwendolen.     "  I  don't  feel  able 
to  follow  your  advice  of  enjoying  my  own  mid- 


For  my  part,"  said  Deronda,  "  people  who  do 
any  thing  finely  always  inspirit  me  to  try.  I  don't 
mean  that  they  make  me  believe  I  can  do  it  as 
well.  But  they  make  the  thing,  whatever  it  may 
be,  seem  worthy  to  be  done.  I  can  bear  to  think 
my  own  music  not  good  for  much,  but  the  world 
would  be  more  dismal  if  I  thought  music  itself 
not  good  for  much.  Excellence  encourages  one 
about  life  generally ;  it  shows  the  spiritual  wealth 
of  the  world." 

But  then  if  we  can't  imitate  it? — it  only 
makes  our  own  life  seem  the  tamer,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, in  a  mood  to  resent  encouragement  found- 
ed on  her  own  insignificance. 

"  That  depends  on  the  point  of  view,  I  think," 
said  Deronda.  "  We  should  have  a  poor  life  of 
it  if  we  were  reduced  for  all  our  pleasure  to  our 
own  performances.  A  little  private  imitation  of 
what  is  good  is  a  sort  of  private  devotion  to  it, 
and  most  of  us  ought  to  practice  art  only  in  the 
light  of  private  study — preparation  to  understand 
and  enjoy  what  the  few  can  do  for  us.  I  think 
Miss  Lapidoth  is  one  of  the  few." 

"  She  must  be  a  very  happy  person,  don't  you 
think  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  touch  of  sarcasm, 
and  a  turn  of  her  neck  toward  Mrs.  Raymond. 

"  I  don't  know,"  answered  the  independent  lady ; 
"  I  must  hear  more  of  her  before  I  said  that." 

"It  may  have  been  a  bitter  disappointment  to 
her  that  her  voice  failed  her  for  the  stage,"  said 
Juliet  Fenn,  sympathetically. 

"I  suppose  she's  past  her  best,  though,"  said 
the  deep  voice  of  Lady  Pentreath. 

"  On  the  contrary,  she  has  not  reached  it,"  said 
Deronda.  "She  is  barely  twenty." 

"  And  very  pretty,"  interposed  Lady  Mallinger, 
with  an  amiable  wish  to  help  Deronda.  "And 
she  has  very  good  manners.  I'm  sorry  she  is  a 
bigoted  Jewess ;  I  should  not  like  it  for  any  thing 
else,  but  it  doesn't  matter  in  singing." 

"  Well,  since  her  voice  is  too  weak  for  her  to 
scream  much,  I'll  tell  Lady  Clementina  to  set  her 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


149 


yo 
he 


on  my  nine  granddaughters,"  said  Lady  Pentreath  ; 
"  and  I  hope  she'll  convince  eight  of  them  that 
they  have  not  voice  enough  to  sing  any  where  but 
at  church.  My  notion  is  that  many  of  our  girls 
nowadays  want  lessons  not  to  sing." 

"  I  have  had  my  lessons  in  that,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, looking  at  Deronda.  "  You  see  Lady  Pent- 
reath is  on  my  side." 

While  she  was  speaking,  Sir  Hugo  entered  with 
some  of  the  other  gentlemen,  including  Grand- 
court,  and,  standing  against  the  group  at  the  low 
tea-table,  said, 

"What  imposition  is  Deronda  putting  on  you 
ladies  —  slipping  in  among  you  by  himself  ?" 

"  Wanting  to  pass  off  an  obscurity  on  us  as 
better  than  any  celebrity,"  said  Lady  Pentreath  — 

a  pretty  singing  Jewess  who  is  to  astonish  these 
oung  people.  You  and  I,  who  heard  Catalan!  in 
er  prime,  are  not  so  easily  astonished." 

Sir  Hugo  listened  with  his  good-humored  smile 
as  he  took  a  cup  of  tea  from  his  wife,  and  then 
said,  "Well,  you  know,  a  Liberal  is  bound  to 
think  that  there  have  been  singers  since  Cata- 
lani's  time." 

"  Ah,  you  are  younger  than  I  am.  I  dare  say 
you  are  one  of  the  men  who  ran  after  Alcha- 
risi.  But  she  married  off  and  left  you  all  in  the 
lurch." 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  it's  rather  too  bad  when  these  great 
singers  marry  themselves  into  silence  before  they 
have  a  crack  in  their  voices.  And  the  husband 
is  a  public  robber.  I  remember  Leroux  saying, 
'  A  man  might  as  well  take  down  a  fine  peal  of 
church  bells  and  carry  them  off  to  the  steppes,'  " 
said  Sir  Hugo,  setting  down  his  cup  and  turning 
away  ;  while  Deronda,  who  had  moved  from  his 
place  to  make  room  for  others,  and  felt  that  he 
was  not  in  request,  sat  down  a  little  apart.  Pres- 
ently he  became  aware  that,  in  the  general  dis- 
persion of  the  group,  Gwendolen  had  extricated 
herself  from  the  attentions  of  Mr.  Vandernoodt 
and  had  walked  to  the  piano,  where  she  stood  ap- 
parently examining  the  music  which  lay  on  the 
desk.  Will  any  one  be  surprised  at  Deronda's 
concluding  that  she  wished  him  to  join  her  ?  Per- 
haps she  wanted  to  make  amends  for  the  unpleas- 
ant tone  of  resistance  with  which  she  had  met  his 
recommendation  of  Mirah,  for  he  had  noticed  that 
her  first  impulse  often  was  to  say  what  she  after- 
ward wished  to  retract.  He  went  to  her  side  and 
said, 

"  Are  you  relenting  about  the  music,  and  look- 
ing for  something  to  play  or  sing  ?" 

"  I  am  not  looking  for  any  thing,  but  I  am  re- 
lenting," s#id  Gwendolen,  speaking  in  a  submis- 
sive tone. 

"  May  I  know  the  reason  ?" 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  Miss  Lapidoth  and  have 
lessons  from  her,  since  you  admire  her  so  much 
—  that  is,  of  course,  when  we  go  to  town.  I  mean 
lessons  in  rejoicing  at  her  excellence  and  my  own 
deficiency,"  said  Gwendolen,  turning  on  him  a 
sweet  open  smile. 

"  I  shall  be  really  glad  for  you  to  see  and  hear 
her,"  said  Deronda,  returning  the  smile  in  kind. 

"  Is  she  as  perfect  hi  every  thing  else  as  hi  her 
music  ?" 

"  I  can't  vouch  for  that  exactly.  I  have  not 
seen  enough  of  her.  But  I  have  seen  nothing  in 
her  that  I  could  wish  to  be  different.  She  has 
had  an  unhappy  life.  Her  troubles  began  in  early 
childhood,  and  she  has  grown  up  among  very 


painful  surroundings.  But  I  think  you  will  say 
that  no  advantages  could  have  given  her  more 
grace  and  truer  refinement." 

"  I  wonder  what  sort  of  troubles  hers  were  ?" 

"  I  have  not  any  very  precise  knowledge.  But 
I  know  that  she  was  on  the  brink  of  drowning 
herself  in  despair." 

"And  what  hindered  her?"  said  Gwendolen, 
quickly,  looking  at  Deronda. 

"Some  ray  or  other  came,  which  made  her 
feel  that  she  ought  to  live — that  it  was  good  to 
live,"  he  answered,  quietly.  "  She  is  full  of  piety, 
and  seems  capable  of  submitting  to  any  thing 
when  it  takes  the  form  of  duty." 

"  Those  people  are  not  to  be  pitied,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, impatiently.  "  I  have  no  sympathy  with 
omen  who  are  always  doing  right.  I  don't 
believe  hi  their  great  sufferings."  Her  fingers 
moved  quickly  among  the  edges  of  the  music. 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Deronda,  "  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  having  done  wrong  is  something  deeper, 
more  bitter.  I  suppose  we  faulty  creatures  can 
never  feel  so  much  for  the  irreproachable  as  for 
those  who  are  bruised  in  the  struggle  with  their 
own  faults.  It  is  a  very  ancient  story,  that  of 
the  lost  sheep,  but  it  comes  up  afresh  every 
day." 

"  That  is  a  way  of  speaking — it  is  not  acted  on, 
it  is  not  real,"  said  Gwendolen,  bitterly.  "  You 
admire  Miss  Lapidoth  because  you  think  her 
blameless,  perfect.  And  you  know  you  would 
despise  a  woman  who  had  done  something  you 
thought  very  wrong." 

"  That  would  depend  entirely  on  her  own  view 
of  what  she  had  done,"  said  Deronda. 

"  You  would  be  satisfied  if  she  were  very  wretch- 
ed, I  suppose  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  impetuously. 

"  No,  not  satisfied — full  of  sorrow  for  her.  It 
was  not  a  mere  way  of  speaking.  I  did  not  mean 
to  say  that  the  finer  nature  is  not  more  adorable ; 
I  meant  that  those  who  would  be  comparatively 
uninteresting  beforehand  may  become  worthier  of 
sympathy  when  they  do  something  that  awakens 
in  them  a  keen  remorse.  Lives  are  enlarged  in 
different  ways.  I  dare  say  some  would  never  get 
their  eyes  opened  if  it  were  not  for  a  violent 
shock  from  the  consequences  of  their  own  ac- 
tions. And  when  they  are  suffering  hi  that  way 
one  must  care  for  them  more  than  for  the  com- 
fortably self-satisfied."  Deronda  forgot  every 
thing  but  his  vision  of  what  Gwendolen's  experi- 
ence had  probably  been,  and  urged  by  compas- 
sion, let  his  eyes  and  voice  express  as  much  in- 
terest as  they  would. 

Gwendolen  had  slipped  on  to  the  music-stool, 
and  looked  up  at  him  with  pain  in  her  long  eyes, 
like  a  wounded  animal  asking  help. 

"  Are  you  persuading  Mrs.  Grandcourt  to  play 
to  us,  Dan  ?"  said  Sir  Hugo,  coming  up  and  put- 
ting his  hand  on  Deronda's  shoulder  with  a  gen- 
tle admonitory  pinch. 

"  I  can  not  persuade  myself,"  said  Gwendolen, 
rising. 

Others  had  followed  Sir  Hugo's  lead,  and  there 
was  an  end  of  any  liability  to  confidences  for  that 
day.  But  the  next  was  New-Year's  Eve ;  and  a 
grand  dance,  to  which  the  chief  tenants  were  in- 
vited, was  to  be  held  hi  the  picture-gallery  above 
the  cloister — the  sort  of  entertainment  in  which 
numbers  and  general  movement  may  create  pri- 
vacy. When  Gwendolen  was  dressing,  she  long- 
ed, "hi  remembrance  of  Leubronn,  to  put  on  the 


150 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


old  turquois  necklace  for  her  sole  ornament 
but  she  dared  not  offend  her  husband  by  appear 
ing  in  that  shabby  way  on  an  occasion  when  he 
would  demand  her  utmost  splendor.  Determined 
to  wear  the  memorial  necklace  somehow,  she 
wound  it  thrice  round  her  wrist  and  made  a  brace- 
let of  it — having  gone  to  her  room  to  put  it  on 
just  before  the  time  of  entering  the  ball-room. 

.It  was  always  a  beautiful  scene,  this  dance  on 
New- Year's  Eve,  which  had  been  kept  up  by 
family  tradition  as  nearly  in  the  old  fashion  as 
inexorable  change  would  allow.  Red  carpet  was 
laid  down  for  the  occasion ;  hot-house  plants  and 
evergreens  were  arranged  hi  bowers  at  the  ex- 
tremities and  hi  every  recess  of  the  gallery ;  and 
the  old  portraits,  stretching  back  through  gener- 
ations even  to  the  pre-portraying  period,  made  a 
piquant  line  of  spectators.  Some  neighboring 
gentry,  major  and  minor,  were  invited ;  and  it 
was  certainly  an  occasion  when  a  prospective 
master  and  mistress  of  Monk's  and  King's  Top- 
ping might  see  their  future  glory  in  an  agreeable 
light,  as  a  picturesque  provincial  supremacy  with 
a  rent-roll  personified  by  the  most  prosperous- 
looking  tenants.  Sir  Hugo  expected  Grandcourt 
to  feel  flattered  by  being  asked  to  the  Abbey  at 
a  time  which  included  this  festival  in  honor  of 
the  family  estate ;  but  he  also  hoped  that  his  own 
hale  appearance  might  impress  his  successor  with 
the  probable  length  of  time  that  would  elapse  be- 
fore the  succession  came,  and  with  the  wisdom  of 
preferring  a  good  actual  sum  to  a  minor  proper- 
ty that  must  be  waited  for.  All  present,  down 
to  the  least  important  farmer's  daughter,  knew 
that  they  were  to  see  "young  Grandcourt,"  Sir 
Hugo's  nephew,  the  presumptive  heir  and  future 
Baronet,  now  visiting  the  Abbey  with  his  bride 
after  an  absence  of  many  years ;  any  coolness 
between  uncle  and  nephew  having,  it  was  under- 
stood, given  way  to  a  friendly  warmth.  The 
bride  opening  the  ball  with  Sir  Hugo  was  neces- 
sarily the  cynosure  of  all  eyes ;  and  less  than  a 
year  before,  if  some  magic  mirror  could  have 
shown  Gwendolen  her  actual  position,  she  would 
have  imagined  herself  moving  in  it  with  a  glow 
of  triumphant  pleasure,  conscious  that  she  held 
in  her  hands  a  life  full  of  favorable  chances 
which  her  cleverness  and  spirit  would  enable  her 
to  make  the  best  of.  And  now  she  was  wonder- 
ing that  she  could  get  so  little  joy  out  of  the  ex- 
altation to  which  she  had  been  suddenly  lifted, 
away  from  the  distasteful  petty  empire  of  her 
girlhood,  with  its  irksome  lack  of  distinction  and 
superfluity  of  sisters.  She  would  have  been  glad 
to  be  even  unreasonably  elated,  and  to  forget  ev- 
ery thing  but  the  flattery  of  the  moment ;  but  she 
was  like  one  courting  sleep,  in  whom  thoughts 
insist  like  willful  tormentors. 

Wondering  in  this  way  at  her  own  dullness, 
and  all  the  while  longing  for  an  excitement  that 
would  deaden  importunate  aches,  she  was  passing 
through  files  of  admiring  beholders  in  the  coun- 
try-dance with  which  it  was  traditional  to  open 
the  ball,  and  was  being  generally  regarded  by  her 
own  sex  as  an  enviable  woman.  It  was  remarked 
that  she  carried  herself  with  a  wonderful  air, 
considering  that  she  had  been  nobody  in  particu- 
lar, and  without  a  farthing  to  her  fortune:  if  she 
had  been  a  duke's  daughter,  or  one  of  the  royal 
princesses,  she  could  not  have  taken  the  honors 
of  the  evening  more  as  a  matter  of  course.  Poor 
Gwendolen !  It  would  by-and-by  become  a  sort 


of  skill  in  which  she  was  automatically  practiced, 
to  bear  this  last  great  gambling  loss  with  an  air 
of  perfect  self-possession. 

The  next  couple  that  passed  were  also  worth 
looking  at.  Lady  Pentreath  had  said,  "  I  shall 
stand  up  for  one  dance,  but  I  shall  choose  my 
partner.  Mr.  Deronda,  you  are  the  youngest  man ; 
I  mean  to  dance  with  you.  Nobody  is  old  enough 
to  make  a  good  pair  with  me.  I  must  have  a  con- 
trast." And  the  contrast  certainly  set  off  the  old 
lady  to  the  utmost.  She  was  one  of  those  women 
who  are  never  handsome  till  they  are  old,  and 
she  had  had  the  wisdom  to  embrace  the  beauty 
of  age  as  early  as  possible.  What  might  have 
seemed  harshness  in  her  features  when  she  was 
young,  had  turned  now  into  a  satisfactory  strength 
of  form  and  expression  which  defied  wrinkles, 
and  was  set  off  by  a  crown  of  white  hair ;  her 
well-built  figure  was  well  covered  with  black 
drapery,  her  ears  and  neck  comfortably  caressed 
with  lace,  showing  none  of  those  withered  spaces 
which  one  would  think  it  a  pitiable  condition  of 
poverty  to  expose.  She  glided  along  gracefully 
enough,  her  dark  eyes  still  with  a  mischievous 
smile  in  them  as  she  observed  the  company.  Her 
partner's  young  richness  of  tint  against  the  flat- 
tened hues  and  rougher  forms  of  her  aged  head 
had  an  effect  something  like  that  of  a  fine  flower 
against  a  lichenous  branch.  Perhaps  the  tenants 
hardly  appreciated  this  pair.  Lady  Pentreath  was 
nothing  more  than  a  straight,  active  old  lady : 
Mr.  Deronda  was  a  familiar  figure  regarded  with 
friendliness  ;  but  if  he  had  been  the  heir,  it  would 
have  been  regretted  that  his  face  was  not  as  un- 
mistakably English  as  Sir  Hugo's. 

Grandcourt's  appearance  when  he  came  up 
with  Lady  Mallinger  was  not  impeached  with 
foreignness :  still,  the  satisfaction  in  it  was  not 
complete.  It  would  have  been  matter  of  con- 
gratulation if  one  who  had  the  luck  to  inherit 
two  old  family  estates  had  had  more  hair,  a  fresh- 
er color,  and  a  look  of  greater  animation ;  but 
that  fine  families  dwindled  off  into  females,  and 
estates  ran  together  into  the  single  heirship  of 
a  mealy-complexioned  male,  was  a  tendency  in 
;hings  which  seemed  to  be  accounted  for  by  a 
citation  of  other  instances.  It  was  agreed  that 
Mr.  Grandcourt  could  never  be  taken  for  any 
;hing  but  what  he  was — a  born  gentleman ;  and 
;hat,  in  fact,  he  Jooked  like  an  heir.  Perhaps 
;he  person  least  complacently  disposed  toward 
lira  at  that  moment  was  Lady  Mallinger,  to 

horn  going  in  procession  up  this  counti-y-dance 
with  Grandcourt  was  a  blazonment  of  herself  as 
,he  infelicitous  wife  who  had  produced  nothing 
but  daughters,  little  better  than  no  children,  poor 
dear  things,  except  for  her  own  fondness  and  for 
Sir  Hugo's  wonderful  goodness  to*  them.  But 
such  inward  discomfort  could  not  prevent  the  gen- 
tle lady  from  looking  fair  and  stout  to  admiration, 
)r  her  full  blue  eyes  from  glancing  mildly  at  her 
neighbors.  All  the  mothers  and  fathers  held  it 

thousand  pities  that  she  had  not  had  a  fine  boy, 
or  even  several — which  might  have  been  expected, 
,o  look  at  her  when  she  was  first  married. 

The  gallery  included  only  three  sides  of  the 
luadrangle,  the  fourth  being  shut  off  as  a  lobby 
>r  corridor :  one  side  was  used  for  dancing,  and 
he  opposite  side  for  the  supper  table,  while  the 
ntermediate  part  was  less  brilliantly  lit,  and  fit- 
,ed  with  comfortable  seats.  Later  in  the  evening 
Gwendolen  was  in  one  of  these  seats,  and  Grand- 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAL 


151 


court  was  standing  near  her.  They  were  not  talk- 
ing to  each  other :  she  was  leaning  backward  in 
her  chair,  and  he  against  the  wall ;  and  Deronda, 
happening  to  observe  this,  went  up  to  ask  her  if 
she  had  determined  not  to  dance  any  more.  Hav- 
ing himself  been  doing  hard  duty  in  this  way  among 
the  guests,  he  thought  he  had  earned  the  right  to 
sink  for  a  little  while  into  the  background,  and  he 
had  spoken  little  to  Gwendolen  since  their  conver- 
sation at  the  piano  the  day  before.  Grandcourt's 
presence  would  only  make  it  the  easier  to  show 
that  pleasure  in  talking  to  her  even  about  trivial- 
ities which  would  be  a  sign  of  friendliness ;  and 
he  fancied  that  her  face  looked  blank.  A  smile 
beamed  over  it  as  she  saw  him  coming,  and  she 
raised  herself  from  her  leaning  posture.  Grand- 
court  had  been  grumbling  at  the  ennui  of  stay- 
ing so  long  in  this  stupid  dance,  and  proposing 
that  they  should  vanish :  she  had  resisted  on  the 
ground  of  politeness — not  without  being  a  little 
frightened  at  the  probability  that  he  was  silently 
angry  with  her.  She  had  her  reason  for  staying, 
though  she  had  begun  to  despair  of  the  oppor- 
tunity for  the  sake  of  which  she  had  put  the  old 
necklace  on  her  wrist.  But  now  at  last  Deronda 
had  come. 

"  Yes ;  I  shall  not  dance  any  more.  Are  you 
not  glad  ?"  she  said,  with  some  gayety.  "  You 
might  have  felt  obliged  humbly  to  offer  yourself 
as  a  partner,  and  I  feel  sure  you  have  danced 
more  than  you  like  already." 

"  I  will  not  deny  that,"  said  Deronda,  "  since 
you  have  danced  as  much  as  you  like." 

"  But  will  you  take  trouble  for  me  in  another 
way,  and  fetch  me  a  glass  of  that  fresh  water  ?" 

It  was  but  a  few  steps  that  Deronda  had  to  go 
for  the  water.  Gwendolen  was  wrapped  in  the 
lightest,  softest  of  white  woolen  burnouses,  under 
which  her  hands  were  hidden.  While  he  was 
gone  she  had  drawn  off  her  glove,  which  was  fin- 
ished with  a  lace  ruffle,  and  when  she  put  up  her 
hand  to  take  the  glass  and  lifted  it  to  her  mouth, 
the  necklace-bracelet,  which  in  its  triple  winding 
adapted  itself  clumsily  to  her  wrist,  was  neces- 
sarily conspicuous.  Grandcourt  saw  it,  and  saw 
that  it  was  attracting  Deronda's  notice. 

"  What  is  that  hideous  thing  you  have  got  on 
your  wrist  ?"  said  the  husband. 

"That?"  said  Gwendolen,  composedly,  point- 
ing to  the  turquoises,  while  she  still  held  the 
glass ;  "  it  is  an  old  necklace  that  I  like  to  wear. 
I  lost  it  once,  and  some  one  found  it  for  me." 

With  that  she  gave  the  glass  again  to  Deronda, 
who  immediately  carried  it  away,  and  on  return- 
ing, said,  in  order  to  banish  any  consciousness 
about  the  necklace, 

"  It  is  worth  while  for  you  to  go  and  look  out 
at  one  of  the  windows  on  that  side.  You  can 
see  the  finest  possible  moonlight  on  the  stone 
pillars  and  carving,  and  shadows  waving  across 
it  in  the  wind." 

"  I  should  like  to  see  it.  Will  you  go  ?"  said 
Gwendolen,  looking  up  at  her  husband. 

He  cast  his  eyes  down  at  her,  and  saying,  "  No, 
Deronda  will  take  you,"  slowly  moved  from  his 
leaning  attitude,  and  slowly  walked  away. 

Gwendolen's  face  for  a  moment  showed  a  fleet- 
ing vexation :  she  resented  this  show  of  indiffer- 
ence toward  her.  Deronda  felt  annoyed,  chiefly 
for  her  sake ;  and  with  a  quick  sense  that  it  would 
relieve  her  most  to  behave  as  if  nothing  peculiar 
had  occurred,  he  said, "  Will  you  take  my  arm  and 


go,  while  only  servants  are  there  ?"  He  thought 
that  he  understood  well  her  action  in  drawing  his 
attention  to  the  necklace :  she  wished  him  to  infer 
that  she  had  submitted  her  mind  to  rebuke — her 
speech  and  manner  had  from  the  first  fluctuated 
toward  that  submission — and  that  she  felt  no  lin- 
gering resentment.  Her  evident  confidence  in  hia 
interpretation  of  her  appealed  to  him  as  a  pecul- 
iar claim. 

When  they  were  walking  together,  Gwendolen 
felt  as  if  the  annoyance  which  had  just  happened 
had  removed  another  film  of  reserve  from  between 
them,  and  she  had  more  right  than  before  to  be 
as  open  as  she  wished.  She  did  not  speak,  being 
filled  with  the  sense  of  silent  confidence,  until 
they  were  in  front  of  the  window  looking  out  on 
the  moon-lit  court.  A  sort  of  bower  had  been 
made  round  the  window,  turning  it  into  a  recess. 
Quitting  his  arm,  she  folded  her  hands  in  her 
burnous,  and  pressed  her  brow  against  the  glass. 
He  moved  slightly  away,  and  held  the  lapels  of  his 
coat  with  his  thumbs  under  the  collar  as  his  man- 
ner was :  he  had  a  wonderful  power  of  standing 
perfectly  still,  and  in  that  position  reminded  one 
sometimes  of  Dante's  spiriti  magni  con  occhi  tardi 
e  gravi.  (Doubtless  some  of  these  danced  in  their 
youth,  doubted  of  their  own  vocation,  and  found 
their  own  times  too  modern.)  He  abstained  from 
remarking  on  the  scene  before  them,  fearing  that 
any  indifferent  words  might  jar  on  her :  already 
the  calm  light  and  shadow,  the  ancient  steadfast 
forms,  had  aloofness  enough  from  those  inward 
troubles  which  he  felt  sure  were  agitating  her. 
And  he  judged  aright :  she  would  have  been  im- 
patient of  polite  conversation.  The  incidents  of 
the  last  minute  or  two  had  receded  behind  for- 
mer thoughts  which  she  had  imagined  herself  ut- 
tering to  Deronda,  and  which  now  urged  them- 
selves to  her  lips.  In  a  subdued  voice  she  said, 

"  Suppose  I  had  gambled  again,  and  lost  the 
necklace  again,  what  should  you  have  thought  of 
me?" 

"  Worse  than  I  do  now." 

"  Then  you  are  mistaken  about  me.  You  want- 
ed me  not  to  do  that — not  to  make  my  gain  out 
of  another's  loss  in  that  way — and  I  have  done  a 
great  deal  worse." 

"I  can  imagine  temptations,"  said  Deronda, 
"  Perhaps  I  am  able  to  understand  what  you  mean. 
At  least  I  understand  self-reproach."  In  spite  of 
preparation,  he  was  almost  alarmed  at  Gwendo- 
len's precipitancy  of  confidence  toward  him,  in 
contrast  with  her  habitual  resolute  concealment. 

"  What  should  you  do  if  you  were  like  me — 
feeling  that  you  were  wrong  and  miserable,  and 
dreading  every  thing  to  come  ?"  It  seemed  that 
she  was  hurrying  to  make  the  utmost  use  of  this 
opportunity  to  speak  as  she  would. 

"  That  is  not  to  be  amended  by  doing  one  thing 
only,  but  many,"  said  Deronda,  decisively. 

"  What  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  nastily,  moving  her 
brow  from  the  glass  and  looking  at  him. 

He  looked  full  at  her  in  return,  with  what  she 
thought  was  severity.  He  felt  that  it  was  not  a 
moment  in  which  he  must  let  himself  be  tender, 
and  flinch  from  implying  a  hard  opinion. 

"  I  mean  there  are  many  thoughts  and  habits 
that  may  help  us  to  bear  inevitable  sorrow.  Mul- 
titudes have  to  bear  it." 

She  turned  her  brow  to  the  window  again,  and 
said,  impatiently,  "  You  must  tell  me,  then,  what 
to  think  and  what  to  do ;  else  why  did  you  not 


152 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


let  me  go  on  doing  as  I  liked,  and  not  minding  ? 
If  I  had  gone  on  gambling  I  might  have  won 
again,  and  I  might  have  got  not  to  care  for  any 
thing  else.  You  would  not  let  me  do  that.  Why 
shouldn't  I  do  as  I  like,  and  not  mind  ?  Other 
people  do."  Poor  Gwendolen's  speech  expressed 
nothing  very  clearly  except  her  irritation. 

"I  don't  believe  you  would  ever  get  not  to 
mind,"  said  Deronda,  with  deep-toned  decision. 
"  If  it  were  true  that  baseness  and  cruelty  made 
an  escape  from  pain,  what  difference  would  that 
make  to  people  who  can't  be  quite  base  or  cruel  ? 
Idiots  escape  some  pain;  but  you  can't  be  an 
idiot.  Some  may  do  wrong  to  another  without 
remorse ;  but  suppose  one  does  feel  remorse  ?  I 
believe  you  could  never  lead  an  injurious  life — 
all  reckless  lives  are  injurious,  pestilential — with- 
out feeling  remorse."  Deronda's  unconscious 
fervor  had  gathered  as  he  went  on :  he  was  ut- 
tering thoughts  which  he  had  used  for  himself  in 
moments  of  painful  meditation. 

"Then  tell  me  what  better  I  can  do,"  said 
Gwendolen,  insistently. 

"Many  things.  Look  on  other  lives  besides 
your  own.  See  what  their  troubles  are,  and  how 
they  are  borne.  Try  to  care  about  something  in 
this  vast  world  besides  the  gratification  of  small 
selfish  desires.  Try  to  care  for  what  is  best  in 
thought  and  action — something  that  is  good  apart 
from  the  accidents  of  your  own  lot." 

For  an  instant  or  two  Gwendolen  was  mute. 
Then,  again  moving  her  brow  from  the  glass,  she 
said, 

"  You  mean  that  I  am  selfish  and  ignorant." 

He  met  her  fixed  look  in  silence  before  he  an- 
swered, firmly, 


She  did  not  turn  away  her  glance  or  let  her 
eyelids  fall,  but  a  change  came  over  her  face — 
that  subtle  change  in  nerve  and  muscle  which 
will  sometimes  give  a  child-like  expression  even  to 
the  elderly :  it  is  the  subsidence  of  self-assertion. 

"  Shall  I  lead  you  back  ?"  said  Deronda,  gently, 
turning  and  offering  her  his  arm  again.  She  took 
it  silently,  and  in  that  way  they  came  in  sight  of 
Grandcourt,  who  was  walking  slowly  near  their 
former  place.  Gwendolen  went  up  to  him  and 
said, "  I  am  ready  to  go  now.  Mr.  Deronda  will 
excuse  us  to  Lady  Mallinger." 

"Certainly,"  said  Deronda.  "Lord  and  Lady 
Pentreath  disappeared  some  time  ago." 

Grandcourt  gave  his  arm  in  silent  compliance, 
nodding  over  his  shoulder  to  Deronda,  and  Gwen- 
dolen too  only  half  turned  to  bow  and  say, 
"  Thanks."  The  husband  and  wife  left  the  gal- 
lery and  paced  the  corridors  in  silence.  When 
the  door  had  closed  on  them  in  the  boudoir, 
Grandcourt  threw  himself  into  a  chair  and  said, 
with  under-toned  pcremptoriness,  "Sit  down." 
She,  already  in  the  expectation  of  something  un- 
pleasant, had  thrown  off  her  burnous  with  nerv- 
ous unconsciousness,  and  immediately  obeyed. 
Turning  his  eyes  toward  her,  he  began : 

"  Oblige  me  in  future  by  not  showing  whims 
like  a  mad-woman  in  a  play." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  said  Gwendolen. 

"I  suppose  there  is  some  understanding  be- 
tween you  and  Deronda  about  that  thing  you 
have  on  your  wrist.  If  you  have  any  thing  to 
say  to  him,  say  it.  But  don't  carry  on  a  tele- 
graphing which  other  people  are  supposed  not  to 
see.  It's  damnably  vulgar." 


"  You  can  know  all  about  the  necklace,"  said 
Gwendolen,  her  angry  pride  resisting  the  night- 
mare of  fear. 

"I  don't  want  to  know.  Keep  to  yourself 
whatever  you  like."  Grandcourt  paused  between 
each  sentence,  and  in  each  his  speech  seemed  to 
become  more  preternaturally  distinct  in  its  inward 
tones.  "  What  I  care  to  know,  I  shall  know  with- 
out your  telling  me.  Only  you  will  please  to  be- 
have as  becomes  my  wife.  And  not  make  a  spec- 
tacle of  yourself." 

"  Do  you  object  to  my  talking  to  Mr.  Deronda  ?" 

"  I  don't  care  two  straws  about  Deronda,  or 
any  other  conceited  hanger-on.  You  may  talk 
to  him  as  much  as  you  like.  He  is  not  going  to 
take  my  place.  You  are  my  wife.  And  you  will 
either  fill  your  place  properly — to  the  world  and 
to  me — or  you  will  go  to  the  devil." 

"  I  never  intended  any  thing  but  to  fill  my 
place  properly,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  bitterest 
mortification  in  her  soul. 

"  You  put  that  thing  on  your  wrist,  and  hid  it 
from  me  till  you  wanted  him  to  see  it.  Only 
fools  go  into  that  deaf-and-dumb  talk,  and  think 
they're  secret.  You  will  understand  that  you  are 
not  to  compromise  yourself.  Behave  with  dig- 
nity. That's  all  I  have  to  say." 

With  that  last  word  Grandcourt  rose,  turned 
his  back  to  the  fire,  and  looked  down  on  her. 
She  was  mute.  There  was  no  reproach  that  she 
dared  to  fling  at  him  in  return  for  these  insulting 
admonitions,  and  the  very  reason  she  felt  them 
to  be  insulting  was  that  their  purport  went  with 
the  most  absolute  dictate  of  her  pride.  What 
she  would  least  like  to  incur  was  the  making  a 
fool  of  herself  and  being  compromised.  It  was 
futile  and  irrelevant  to  try  and  explain  that  De- 
ronda too  had  only  been  a  monitor — the  strongest 
of  all  monitors.  Grandcourt  was  contemptuous, 
not  jealous;  contemptuously  certain  of  all  the 
subjection  he  cared  for.  Why  could  she  not 
rebel,  and  defy  him  ?  She  longed  to  do  it.  But 
she  might  as  well  have  tried  to  defy  the  texture 
of  her  nerves  and  the  palpitation  of  her  heart. 
Her  husband  had  a  ghostly  army  at  his  back, 
that  could  close  round  her  wherever  she  might 
turn.  She  sat  in  her  splendid  attire,  like  a  white 
image  of  helplessness,  and  he  seemed  to  gratify 
himself  with  looking  at  her.  She  could  not  even 
make  a  passionate  exclamation,  or  throw  up  her 
arms,  as  she  would  have  done  in  her  maiden  days. 
The  sense  of  his  scorn  kept  her  still. 

"  Shall  I  ring  ?"  he  said,  after  what  seemed  to 
her  a  long  while.  She  moved  her  head  in  assent, 
and  after  ringing  he  went  to  his  dressing-room. 

Certain  words  were  gnawing  within  her.  "  The 
willing  wrong  you  have  done  me  will  be  your 
curse."  As  he  closed  the  door,  the  bitter  tears 
rose,  and  the  gnawing  words  provoked  an  answer : 
"  Why  did  you  put  your  fangs  into  me  and  not  into 
him  ?"  It  was  uttered  in  a  whisper,  as  the  tears 
came  up  silently.  But  immediately  she  pressed 
her  handkerchief  against  her  eyes,  and  checked 
her  tendency  to  sob. 

The  next  day,  recovered  from  the  shuddering  fit 
of  this  evening  scene,  she  determined  to  use  the 
charter  which  Grandcourt  had  scornfully  given 
her,  and  to  talk  as  much  as  she  liked  with  De- 
ronda :  but  no  opportunities  occurred,  and  any  lit- 
tle devices  she  could  imagine  for  creating  them 
were  rejected  by  her  pride,  which  was  now  doubly 
active.  Not  toward  Deronda  himself — she  was 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


153 


curiously  free  from  alarm  lest  he  should  think 
her  openness  wanting  in  dignity :  it  was  part  of 
his  power  over  her  that  she  believed  him  free 
from  all  misunderstanding  as  to  the  way  in  which 
she  appealed  to  him :  or,  rather,  that  he  should 
misunderstand  her  had  never  entered  into  her 
mind.  But  the  last  morning  came,  and  still  she 
had  never  been  able  to  take  up  the  dropped  thread 
of  their  talk,  and  she  was  without  devices.  She 
and  Grandcourt  were  to  leave  at  three  o'clock.  It 
was  too  irritating  that  after  a  walk  in  the  grounds 
had  been  planned  in  Deronda's  hearing,  he  did 
not  present  himself  to  join  in  it.  Grandcourt 
was  gone  with  Sir  Hugo  to  King's  Topping  to  see 
the  old  manor-house;  others  of  the  gentlemen 
were  shooting ;  she  was  condemned  to  go  and  see 
the  decoy  and  the  water-fowl,  and  every  thing 
else  that 'she  least  wanted  to  see,  with  the  ladies, 
with  old  Lord  Pentreath  and  his  anecdotes,  with 
Mr.  Vandernoodt  and  his  admiring  manners.  The 
irritation  became  too  strong  for  her :  without  pre- 
meditation, she  took  advantage  of  the  winding 
road  to  linger  a  little  out  of  sight,  and  then  set 
off  back  to  the  house,  almost  running  when  she 
was  safe  from  observation.  She  entered  by  a  side 
door,  and  the  library  was  on  her  left  hand ;  De- 
ronda,  she  knew,  was  often  there ;  why  might  she 
not  turn  in  there  as  well  as  into  any  other  room 
in  the  house  ?  She  had  been  taken  there  express- 
ly to  see  the  illuminated  family  tree,  and  other 
remarkable  things — what  more  natural  than  that 
she  should  like  to  look  in  again  ?  The  thing  most 
to  be  feared  was  that  the  room  would  be  empty 
of  Deronda,  for  the  door  was  ajar.  She  pushed 
it  gently,  and  looked  round  it.  He  was  there, 
writing  busily  at  a  distant  table,  with  his  back 
toward  the  door  (in  fact,  Sir  Hugo  had  asked  him 
to  answer  some  constituents'  letters  which  had  be- 
come pressing).  An  enormous  log  fire,  with  the 
scent  of  russia  from  the  books,  made  the  great 
room  as  warmly  odorous  as  a  private  chapel  in 
which  the  censers  have  been  swinging.  It  seem- 
ed too  daring  to  go  in — too  rude  to  speak  and 
interrupt  him ;  yet  she  went  in  on  the  noiseless 
carpet,  and  stood  still  for  two  or  three  minutes, 
till  Deronda,  having  finished  a  letter,  pushed  it 
aside  for  signature,  and  threw  himself  back  to  con- 
sider whether  there  were  any  thing  else  for  him 
to  do,  or  whether  he  could  walk  out  for  the  chance 
of  meeting  the  party  which  included  Gwendolen, 
when  he  heard  her  voice  saying,  "  Mr.  Deronda." 

It  was  certainly  startling.  He  rose  hastily, 
turned  round,  and  pushed  away  his  chair  with  a 
strong  expression  of  surprise. 

"  Am  I  wrong  to  come  in  ?"  said  Gwendolen. 

"  I  thought  you  were  far  on  your  walk,"  said 
Deronda. 

"  I  turned  back,"  said  Gwendolen. 

"  Do  you  not  intend  to  go  out  again  ?  I  could 
join  you  now,  if  you  would  allow  me." 

"  No ;  I  want  to  say  something,  and  I  can't  stay 
long,"  said  Gwendolen,  speaking  quickly  in  a  sub- 
dued tone,  while  she  walked  forward  and  rested 
her  arms  and  muff  on  the  back  of  the  chair  he 
had  pushed  away  from  him.  "  I  want  to  tell  you 
that  it  is  really  so— I  can't  help  feeling  remorse 
for  having  injured  others.  That  was  what  I  meant 
when  I  said  that  I  had  done  worse  than  gamble 
again  and  pawn  the  necklace  again — something 
more  injurious,  as  you  called  it.  And  I  can't  alter 
it.  I  am  punished,  but  I  can't  alter  it.  You  said 
I  could  do  many  things.  Tell  me  again.  What 


should  you  do,  what  should  you  feel,  if  you  were 
in  my  place  ?" 

The  hurried  directness  with  which  she  spoke, 
the  absence  of  all  her  little  airs,  as  if  she  were 
only  concerned  to  use  the  time  in  getting  an  an- 
swer that  would  guide  her,  made  her  appeal  un- 
speakably touching. 

Deronda  said, "  I  should  feel  something  of  what 
you  feel — deep  sorrow." 

"But  what  would  you  try  to  do?"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, with  urgent  quickness. 

"Order  my  life  so  as  to  make  any  possible 
amends,  and  keep  away  from  doing  any  sort  of 
injury  again,"  said  Deronda,  catching  her  sense 
that  the  time  for  speech  was  brief. 

"But  I  can't — I  can't;  I  must  go  on,"  said 
Gwendolen,  in  a  passionate  loud  whisper.  "I 
have  thrust  out  others — I  have  made  my  gain 
out  of  their  loss — tried  to  make  it — tried.  And 
I  must  go  on.  I  can't  alter  it." 

It  was  impossible  to  answer  this  instantaneous- 
ly. Her  words  had  confirmed  his  conjecture,  and 
the  situation  of  all  concerned  rose  in  swift  images 
before  him.  His  feeling  for  those  who  had  been 
"  thrust  out"  sanctioned  her  remorse ;  he  could 
not  try  to  nullify  it,  yet  his  heart  was  full  of  pity 
for  her.  But  as  soon  as  he  could  he  answered, 
taking  up  her  last  words, 

"  That  is  the  bitterest  of  all— to  wear  the  yoke 
of  our  own  wrong-doing.  But  if  you  submitted 
to  that,  as  men  submit  to  maiming  or  a  life-long 
incurable  disease? — and  made  the  unalterable 
wrong  a  reason  for  more  effort  toward  a  good 
that  may  do  something  to  counterbalance  the 
evil  ?  One  who  has  committed  irremediable  er- 
rors may  be  scourged  by  that  consciousness  into 
a  higher  course  than  is  common.  There  are  many 
examples.  Feeling  what  it  is  to  have  spoiled  one 
life  may  well  make  us  long  to  save  other  lives 
from  being  spoiled." 

"  But  you  have  not  wronged  any  one,  or  spoiled 
any  lives,"  said  Gwendolen,  hastily.  "  It  is  only 
others  who  have  wronged  you." 

Deronda  colored  slightly,  but  said,  immediately, 
"  I  suppose  our  keen  feeling  for  ourselves  might 
end  in  giving  us  a  keen  feeling  for  others,  if,  when 
we  are  suffering  acutely,  we  were  to  consider  that 
others  go  through  the  same  sharp  experience. 
That  is  a  sort  of  remorse  before  commission. 
Can't  you  understand  that  ?" 

"  I  think  I  do — now,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  But 
you  were  right — I  am  selfish.  I  have  never 
thought  much  of  any  one's  feelings,  except  my 
mother's.  I  have  not  been  fond  of  people. — But 
what  can  I  do  ?"  she  went  on,  more  quickly.  "  I 
must  get  up  in  the  morning  and  do  what  every 
one  else  does.  It  is  all  like  a  dance  set  before- 
hand. I  seem  to  see  all  that  can  be — and  I  am 
tired  and  sick  of  it.  And  the  world  is  all  confu- 
sion to  me" — she  made  a  gesture  of  disgust. 
"  You  say  I  am  ignorant.  But  what  is  the  good 
of  trying  to  know  more,  unless  life  were  worth 
more?" 

"  This  good,"  said  Deronda,  promptly,  with  a 
touch  of  indignant  severity,  which  he  was  inclined 
to  encourage  as  his  own  safeguard :  "  life  ifould 
be  worth  more  to  you:  some  real  knowledge 
would  give  you  an  interest  hi  the  world  beyond 
the  small  drama  of  personal  desires.  It  is  the 
curse  of  your  life — forgive  me — of  so  many  lives, 
that  all  passion  is  spent  in  that  narrow  round, 
for  want  of  ideas  and  sympathies  to  make  a  larger 


154 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


home  for  it.  Is  there  any  single  occupation  of 
mind  that  you  care  about  with  passionate  delight, 
or  even  independent  interest  ?" 

Deronda  paused,  but  Gwendolen,  looking  star- 
tled and  thrilled  as  by  an  electric  shock,  said  noth- 
ing, and  he  went  on,  more  insistently, 

"I  take  what  you  said  of  music  for  a  small 
example — it  answers  for  all  larger  things — you 
will  not  cultivate  it  for  the  sake  of  a  private  joy 
in  it.  What  sort  of  earth  or  heaven  would  hold 
any  spiritual  wealth  in  it  for  souls  pauperized  by 
inaction  ?  If  one  firmament  has  no  stimulus  for 
our  attention  and  awe,  I  don't  see  how  four  would 
have  it.  We  should  stamp  every  possible  world 
with  the  flatness  of  our  own  inanity — which  is 
necessarily  impious,  without  faith  or  fellowship. 
The  refuge  you  are  needing  from  personal  trou- 
ble is  the  higher,  the  religious  life,  which  holds 
an  enthusiasm  for  something  more  than  our  own 
appetites  and  vanities.  The  few  may  find  them- 
selves in  it  simply  by  an  elevation  of  feeling ;  but 
for  us  who  have  to  struggle  for  our  wisdom,  the 
higher  life  must  be  a  region  in  which  the  affec- 
tions are  clad  with  knowledge." 

The  half-indignant  remonstrance  that  vibrated 
in  Deronda's  voice  came,  as  often  happens,  from 
the  habit  of  inward  argument  with  himself  rather 
than  from  severity  toward  Gwendolen ;  but  it  had 
a  more  beneficent  effect  on  her  than  any  sooth- 
ings.  Nothing  is  feebler  than  the  indolent  re- 
bellion of  complaint ;  and  to  be  roused  into  self- 
judgment  is  comparative  activity.  For  the  mo- 
ment she  felt  like  a  shaken  child — shaken  out  of 
its  wailings  into  awe,  and  she  said,  humbly, 

"I  will  try.     I  will  think." 

They  both  stood  silent  for  a  minute,  as  if  some 
third  presence  had  arrested  them — for  Deronda 
too  was  under  that  sense  of  pressure  which  is  apt 
to  come  when  our  own  winged  words  seem  to  be 
hovering  around  us — till  Gwendolen  began  again  : 

"  You  said  affection  was  the  best  thing,  and  I 
have  hardly  any — none  about  me.  If  I  could, 
I  would  have  mamma;  but  that  is  impossible. 
Things  have  changed  to  me  so — in  such  a  short 
time.  What  I  used  not  to  like,  I  long  for  now. 
I  think  I  am  almost  getting  fond  of  the  old  things 
now  they  are  gone."  Her  lip  trembled. 

"  Take  the  present  suffering  as  a  painful  letting 
in  of  light,"  said  Deronda,  more  gently.  "  You 
are  conscious  of  more  beyond  the  round  of  your 
own  inclinations — you  know  more  of  the  way  in 
which  your  life  presses  on  others,  and  Jheir  life 
on  yours.  I  don't  think  you  could  have  escaped 
the  painful  process  in  some  form  or  other." 

"  But  it  is  a  very  cruel  form,"  said  Gwendolen, 
beating  her  foot  on  the  ground  with  returning 
agitation.  "  I  am  frightened  at  every  thing.  I 
am  frightened  at  myself.  When  my  blood  is 
fired  I  can  do  daring  things — take  any  leap ;  but 
that  makes  me  frightened  at  myself."  She  was 
looking  at  nothing  outside  her ;  but  her  eyes  were 
directed  toward  the  window,  away  from  Deronda, 
who,  with  quick  comprehension,  said, 

"  Turn  your  fetir  into  a  safeguard.  Keep  your 
dread  fixed  on  the  idea  of  increasing  that  remorse 
which  is  so  bitter  to  you.  Fixed  meditation  may 
do  a  great  deal  toward  defining  our  longing  or 
dread.  We  are  not  always  in  a  state  of  strong 
emotion,  and  when  we  are  calm  we  can  use  our 
memories  and  gradually  change  the  bias  of  our 
fear,  as  we  do  our  tastes.  Take  your  fear  as  a 
safeguard.  It  is  like  quickness  of  hearing.  It 


may  make  consequences  passionately  present  to 
you.  Try  to  take  hold  of  your  sensibility,  and 
use  it  as  if  it  were  a  faculty,  like  vision."  De- 
ronda uttered  each  sentence  more  urgently;  he 
felt  as  if  he  were  seizing  a  faint  chance  of  res- 
cuing her  from  some  indefinite  danger. 

"  Yes,  I  know ;  I  understand  what  you  mean," 
said  Gwendolen,  in  her  loud  whisper,  not  turning 
her  eyes,  but  lifting  up  her  small  gloved  hand 
and  waving  it  in  deprecation  of  the  notion  that  it 
was  easy  to  obey  that  advice.  "But  if  feelings 
rose — there  are  some  feelings — hatred  and  an- 
ger— how  can  I  be  good  when  they  keep  rising  ? 
And  if  there  came  a  moment  when  I  felt  stifled 
and  could  bear  it  no  longer — "  She  broke  off, 
and  with  agitated  lips  looked  at  Deronda,  but  the 
expression  on  his  face  pierced  her  with  an  entire- 
ly new  feeling.  He  was  under  the  baffling  diffi- 
culty of  discerning  that  what  he  had  been  urging 
on  her  was  thrown  into  the  pallid  distance  of 
mere  thought  before  the  outburst  of  her  habitual 
emotion.  It  was  as  if  he  saw  her  drowning  while 
his  limbs  were  bound.  The  pained  compassion 
which  was  spread  over  his  features  as  he  watch- 
ed her,  affected  her  with  a  compunction  unlike 
any  she  had  felt  before,  and  hi  a  changed,  implor- 
ing tone,  she  said, 

"  I  am  grieving  you.  I  am  ungrateful.  You 
can  help  me.  I  will  think  of  every  thing.  I  will 
try.  Tell  me — it  will  not  be  a  pain  to  you  that  I 
have  dared  to  speak  of  my  trouble  to  you  ?  You 
began  it,  you  know,  when  you  rebuked  me." 
There  was  a  melancholy  smile  on  her  lips  as  she 
said  that,  but  she  added,  more  entreatingly,  "  It 
will  not  be  a  pain  to  you  ?" 

"  Not  if  it  does  any  thing  to  save  you  from  an 
evil  to  come,"  said  Deronda,  with  strong  empha- 
sis ;  "  otherwise,  it  will  be  a  lasting  pain." 

"No — no — it  shall  not  be.  It  may  be — it 
shall  be  better  with  me  because  I  have  known 
you."  She  turned  immediately,  and  quitted  the 
room. 

When  she  was  on  the  first  landing  of  the  stair- 
case, Sir  Hugo  passed  across  the  hall  on  his  way 
to  the  library,  and  saw  her.  Grandcourt  was  not 
with  him. 

Deronda,  when  the  Baronet  entered,  was  stand- 
ing in  his  ordinary  attitude,  grasping  his  coat 
collar,  with  his  back  to  the  table,  and  with  that 
indefinable  expression  by  which  we  judge  that  a 
man  is  still  in  the  shadow  of  a  scene  which  he 
has  just  gone  through.  He  moved,  however,  and 
began  to  arrange  the  letters. 

"  Has  Mrs.  Grandcourt  been  in  here  ?"  said  Sir 
Hugo. 

"  Yes,  she  has." 

"  Where  are  the  others  ?" 

"I  believe  she  left  them  somewhere  in  the 
grounds." 

After  a  moment's  silence,  in  which  Sir  Hugo 
looked  at  a  letter  without  reading  it,  he  said,  "  I 
hope  you  are  not  playing  with  fire,  Dan — you  un- 
derstand me." 

"  I  believe  I  do,  Sir,"  said  Deronda,  after  a  slight 
hesitation,  which  had  some  repressed  anger  in  it. 
"  But  there  is  nothing  answering  to  your  meta- 
phor— no  fire,  and  therefore  no  chance  of  scorch- 
ing." 

Sir  Hugo  looked  searchingly  at  him,  and  then 
said,  "So  much  the  better.  For  between  our- 
selves, I  fancy  there  may  be  some  hidden  gun- 
powder in  that  establishment." 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


155 


CHAPTER  XXXVH. 


Aspern.  Pardon,  my  lord— I  speak  for  Sigismnnd. 

Frvnsberg.  For  him?    Ob,  ay — for  him  1  always 

hold 

A  pardon  safe  in  bank,  sure  he  will  draw 
Sooner  or  later  on  me.    What  his  need  ? 
Mad  project  broken  ?  fine  mechanic  wings 
That  would  not  fly?  durance,  assault  on  watch, 
Bill  for  Epernay,  not  a  crust  to  eat? 

Aspern.  Oh,  none  of  these,  my  lord  ;  he  has  escaped 
From  Circe's  herd,  and  seeks  to  win  the  love 
Of  your  fair  ward  Cecilia ;  but  would  win 
First  your  consent    You  frown. 

Frmisberg.  Distinguish  words. 

I  said  I  held  a  pardon,  not  consent 

IN  spite  of  Deronda's  reasons  for  wishing  to  be 
in  town  again — reasons  in  which  his  anxiety  for 
Mirah  was  blent  with  curiosity  to  know  more  of 
the  enigmatic  Mordecai — he  did  not  manage  to  go 
up  before  Sir  Hugo,  who  preceded  his  family  that 
he  might  be  ready  for  the  opening  of  Parliament 
on  the  6th  of  February.  Deronda  took  up  his 
quarters  in  Park  Lane,  aware  that  his  chambers 
were  sufficiently  tenanted  by  Hans  Meyrick.  This 
was  what  he  expected ;  but  he  found  other  things 
not  altogether  according  to  his  expectations. 

Most  of  us  remember  Retzseh's  drawing  of 
destiny  in  the  shape  of  Mephistopheles  playing 
at  chess  with  man  for  his  soul — a  game  in  which 
we  may  imagine  the  clever  adversary  making  a 
feint  of  unintended  moves  so  as  to  set  the  be- 
guiled mortal  on  carrying  his  defensive  pieces 
away  from  the  true  point  of  attack.  The  fiend 
makes  preparation  his  favorite  object  of  mock- 
ery, that  he  may  fatally  persuade  us  against  our 
best  safeguard:  he  even  meddles  so  far  as  to 
suggest  our  taking  out  water-proofs  when  he  is 
well  aware  the  sky  is  going  to  clear,  foreseeing 
that  the  imbecile  will  turn  this  delusion  into  a 
prejudice  against  water-proofs,  instead  of  giving 
a  closer  study  to  the  weather  signs.  It  is  a  pe- 
culiar test  of  a  man's  metal  when,  after  he  has 
painfully  adjusted  himself  to  what  seems  a  wise 
provision,  he  finds  all  his  mental  precaution  a 
little  beside  the  mark,  and  his  excellent  inten- 
tions no  better  than  miscalculated  dovetails,  ac- 
curately cut  from  a  wrong  starting-point.  His 
magnanimity  has  got  itself  ready  to  meet  misbe- 
havior, and  finds  quite  a  different  call  upon  it. 
Something  of  this  kind  happened  to  Deronda. 

His  first  impression  was  one  of  pure  pleasure 
and  amusement  at  finding  his  sitting-room  trans- 
formed into  an  atelier  strewed  with  miscellaneous 
drawings  and  with  the  contents  of  two  chests 
from  Rome,  the  lower  half  of  the  windows  dark- 
ened with  baize,  and  the  blonde  Hans  in  his  weird 
youth  as  the  presiding  genius  of  the  littered  place 
— his  hair  longer  than  of  old,  his  face  more  whim- 
sically creased,  and  his  high  voice  as  usual  get- 
ting higher  under  the  excitement  of  rapid  talk. 
The  friendship  of  the  two  had  been  kept  up 
warmly  since  the  memorable  Cambridge  time, 
not  only  by  correspondence,  but  by  little  epi- 
sodes of  companionship  abroad  and  in  England, 
and  the  original  relation  of  confidence  on  one 
side  and  indulgence  on  the  other  had  been  de- 
veloped in  practice,  as  is  wont  to  be  the  case 
where  such  spiritual  borrowing  and  lending  has 
been  well  begun. 

"  I  knew  you  would  like  to  see  my  casts  and 
antiquities,"  said  Hans,  after  the  first  hearty 
greetings  and  inquiries,  "  so  I  didn't  scruple  to 
unlade  my  chests  here.  But  I've  found  two 
rooms  at  Chelsea  not  many  hundred  yards  from 


my  mother  and  sisters,  and  I  shall  soon  be  ready 
to  hang  out  there — when  they've  scraped  the 
walls  and  put  hi  some  new  lights.  That's  all 
I'm  waiting  for. .  But,  you  see,  I  don't  wait  to  be- 
gin work :  you  can't  conceive  what  a  great  fellow 
I'm  going  to  be.  The  seed  of  immortality  has 
sprouted  within  me." 

"  Only  a  fungoid  growth,  I  dare  say — a  crowing 
disease  in  the  lungs,"  said  Deronda,  accustomed 
to  treat  Hans  in  brotherly  fashion.  He  was  walk- 
ing toward  some  drawings  propped  on  the  ledge 
of  his  book-cases ;  fire  rapidly  sketched  heads — 
different  aspects  of  the  same  face.  He  stood  at 
a  convenient  distance  from  them,  without  making 
any  remark.  Hans,  too,  was  silent  for  a  minute, 
took  up  his  palette,  and  began  touching  the  pic- 
ture on  his  easel. 

What  do  you  think  of  them  ?"  he  said  at  last. 

;  The  full  face  looks  too  massive ;  otherwise 
the  likenesses  are  good,"  said  Deronda,  more  cold- 
ly than  was  usual  with  him. 

"  No,  it  is  not  too  massive,"  said  Hans,  decisive- 
ly. "  I  have  noted  that.  There  is  always  a  little 
surprise  when  one  passes  from  the  profile  to  the 
full  face.  But  I  shall  enlarge  her  scale  for  Ber- 
enice. I  am  making  a  Berenice  series — look  at 
the  sketches  along  there — and  now  I  think  of  it, 
you  are  just  the  model  I  want  for  the  Agrippa." 
Hans,  still  with  pencil  and  palette  in  hand,  had 
moved  to  Deronda's  side  while  he  said  this  ;  but 
he  added,  hastily,  as  if  conscious  of  a  mistake, 
"  No,  no,  I  forgot ;  you  don't  like  sitting  for  your 
portrait,  confound  you !  However,  I've  picked 
up  a  capital  Titus.  There  are  to  be  five  in  the  se- 
ries. The  first  is  Berenice  clasping  the  knees  of 
Gessius  Florus  and  beseeching  him  to  spare  her 
people ;  I've  got  that  on  the  easel.  Then  this, 
where  she  is  standing  on  the  Xystus  with  Agrip- 
pa, entreating  the  people  not  to  injure  themselves 
by  resistance." 

"  Agrippa's  legs  will  never  do,"  said  Deronda. 

"  The  legs  are  good  realistically,"  said  Hans,  his 
face  creasing  drolly ;  "  public  men  are  often  shaky 
about  the  legs—'  their  legs,  the  emblem  of  their 
various  thought,'  as  somebody  says  hi  the  Re- 
hearsal." 

"But  these  are  as  impossible  as  the  legs  of 
Raphael's  Alcibiades,"  said  Deronda. 

"  Then  they  are  good  ideally,"  said  Hans. 
"Agrippa's  legs  were  possibly  bad.  I  idealize 
that  and  make  them  impossibly  bad.  Art,  my  Eu- 
genius,  must  intensify.  But  never  mind  the  legs 
now :  the  third  sketch  in  the  series  is  Berenice 
exulting  in  the  prospect  of  being  Empress  of 
Rome,  when  the  news  has  come  that  Vespasian 
is  declared  Emperor,  and  her  lover  Titus  his  suc- 
cessor." 

"  You  must  put  a  scroll  in  her  mouth,  else  peo- 
ple will  not  understand  that.  You  can't  tell  that 
in  a  picture." 

"  It  will  make  them  feel  their  ignorance,  then 
—an  excellent  aesthetic  effect.  The  fourth  is  Ti- 
tus sending  Berenice  away  from  Rome  after  she 
has  shared  his  palace  for  ten  years — both  reluc- 
tant, both  sad — inmtus  invitam,  as  Suetonius  hath 
it.  I've  found  a  model  for  the  Roman  brute." 

"Shall  you  make  Berenice  look  fifty?  She 
must  have  been  that." 

"  No,  no ;  a  few  mature  touches  to  show  the 
lapse  of  time.  Dark-eyed  beauty  wears  well, 
hers  particularly.  But  now,  here  is  the  fifth: 
Berenice  seated  lonely  on  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem. 


156 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


That  is  pure  imagination.  That  is  what  ought  to 
have  been — perhaps  was.  Now  see  how  I  tell  a 
pathetic  negative.  Nobody  knows  what  became 
of  her:  that  is  finely  indicated  by  the  series 
coming  to  a  close.  There  is  no  sixth  picture." 
Here  Hans  pretended  to  speak  with  a  gasping 
sense  of  sublimity,  and  drew  back  his  head  with 
a  frown,  as  if  looking  for  a  like  impression  on 
Deronda.  "I  break  off  in  the  Homeric  style. 
The  story  is  chipped  off,  so  to  speak,  and  passes 
•with  a  ragged  edge  into  nothing — le  neant ;  can 
any  thing  be  more  sublime,  especially  in  French  ? 
The  vulgar  would  desire  to  see  her  corpse  and 
burial — perhaps  her  will  read  and  her  clothes  dis- 
tributed. But  now  come  and  look  at  this  on  the 
easel.  I  have  made  some  way  there." 

"  That  beseeching  attitude  is  really  good,"  said 
Deronda,  after  a  moment's  contemplation.  "  You 
have  been  very  industrious  in  the  Christmas  hol- 
idays ;  for  I  suppose  you  have  taken  up  the  sub- 
ject since  you  came  to  London."  Neither  of  them 
had  yet  mentioned  Mirah. 

"No,"  said  Hans,  putting  touches  to  his  pic- 
ture ;  "  I  made  up  my  mind  to  the  subject  before. 
I  take  that  lucky  chance  for  an  augury  that  I  am 
going  to  burst  on  the  world  as  a  great  painter. 
I  saw  a  splendid  woman  in  the  Trastevere — the 
grandest  women  there  are  half  Jewesses — and  she 
set  me  hunting  for  a  fine  situation  of  a  Jewess  at 
Rome.  Like  other  men  of  vast  learning,  I  ended 
by  taking  what  lay  on  the  surface.  I'll  show  you 
a  sketch  of  the  Trasteverina's  head  when  I  can 
lay  my  hands  on  it." 

"  I  should  think  she  would  be  a  more  suitable 
model  for  Berenice,"  said  Deronda,  not  knowing 
exactly  how  to  express  his  discontent. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  The  model  ought  to  be  the 
most  beautiful  Jewess  in  the  world,  and  I  have 
found  her." 

"  Have  you  made  yourself  sure  that  she  would 
like  to  figure  in  that  character  ?  I  should  think 
no  woman  would  be  more  abhorrent  to  her.  Does 
she  quite  know  what  you  are  doing  ?" 

"Certainly.  I  got  her  to  throw  herself  pre- 
cisely into  this  attitude.  Little  mother  sat  for 
Gessius  Florus,  and  Mirah  clasped  her  knees." 
Here  Hans  went  a  little  way  off  and  looked  at 
the  effect  of  his  touches. 

"I  dare  say  she  knows  nothing  about  Bere- 
nice's history,"  said  Deronda,  feeling  more  indig- 
nation than  he  would  have  been  able  to  justify. 

"  Oh  yes,  she  doee — ladies'  edition.  Berenice 
was  a  fervid  patriot,  but  was  beguiled  by  love  and 
ambition  into  attaching  herself  to  the  archenemy 
of  her  people.  Whence  the  Nemesis.  Mirah  takes 
it  as  a  tragic  parable,  and  cries  to  think  what  the 
penitent  Berenice  suffered  as  she  wandered  back 
to  Jerusalem  and  sat  desolate  amidst  desolation. 
That  was  her  own  phrase.  I  couldn't  find  in  my 
heart  to  tell  her  I  invented  that  part  of  the  story." 

"  Show  me  your  Trasteverina,"  said  Deronda, 
chiefly  in  order  to  hinder  himself  from  saying 
something  else. 

"  Shall  you  mind  turning  over  that  folio  ?"  said 
Hans.  "  My  studies  of  heads  are  all  there.  But 
they  are  in  confusion.  You  will  perhaps  find  her 
next  to  a  crop-eared  under-graduate." 

After  Deronda  had  been  turning  over  the  draw- 
ings a  minute  or  two,  he  said, 

"These  seem  to  be  all  Cambridge  heads  and 
bits  of  country.  Perhaps  I  had  better  begin  at 
the  other  end." 


"  No ;  you'll  find  her  about  the  middle.  I  emp- 
tied one  folio  into  another." 

"  Is  this  one  of  your  under-graduates  ?"  said 
Deronda,  holding  up  a  drawing.  "It's  an  un- 
usually agreeable  face." 

"  That  ?  Oh,  that's  a  man  named  Gascoigne — 
Rex  Gascoigne.  An  uncommonly  good  fellow; 
his  upper  lip,  too,  is  good.  I  coached  him  before 
he  got  his  scholarship.  He  ought  to  have  taken 
honors  last  Easter.  But  he  was  ill,  and  has  had 
to  stay  up  another  year.  I  must  look  him  up. 
I  want  to  know  how  he's  going  on." 

"  Here  she  is,  I  suppose,"  said  Deronda,  holding 
up  the  sketch  of  the  Trasteverina. 

"  Ah,"  said  Hans,  looking  at  it  rather  contempt- 
uously, "  too  coarse.  I  was  unregenerate  then." 

Deronda  was  silent  while  he  closed  the  folio, 
leaving  the  Trasteverina  outside.  Then  grasp- 
ing his  coat  collar,  and  turning  toward  Hans,  he 
said,  "  I  dare  say  my  scruples  are  excessive,  Mey- 
rick,  but  I  must  ask  you  to  oblige  me  by  giving 
up  this  notion." 

Hans  threw  himself  into  a  tragic  attitude,  and 
screamed, "  What !  my  series — my  immortal  Bere- 
nice series  ?  Think  of  what  you  are  saying,  man 
— destroying,  as  Milton  says,  not  a  life,  but  an 
immortality.  Wait  before  you  answer,  that  I 
may  deposit  the  implements  of  my  art  and  be 
ready  to  uproot  my  hair." 

Here  Hans  laid  down  his  pencil  and  palette, 
threw  himself  backward  into  a  great  chair,  and 
hanging  limply  over  the  side,  shook  his  long  hair 
half  over  his  face,  lifted  his  hooked  fingers  on 
each  side  of  his  head,  and  looked  up  with  comic 
terror  at  Deronda,  who  was  obliged  to  smile  as  he 
said, 

"  Paint  as  many  Berenices  as  you  like,  but  I 
wish  you  could  feel  with  me — perhaps  you  will, 
on  reflection — that  you  should  choose  another 
model." 

"  Why  ?"  said  Hans,  standing  up,  and  looking 
serious  again. 

"  Because  she  may  get  into  such  a  position 
that  her  face  is  likely  to  be  recognized.  Mrs. 
Meyrick  and  I  are  anxious  for  her  that  she 
should  be  known  as  an  admirable  singer.  It  is 
right,  and  she  wishes  it,  that  she  should  make 
herself  independent.  And  she  has  excellent 
chances.  One  good  introduction  is  secured  al- 
ready. And  I  am  going  to  speak  to  Klesnier. 
Her  face  may  come  to  be  very  well  known,  and 
— well,  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  explain,  unless 
you  feel  as  I  do.  I  believe  that  if  Mirah  saw  the 
circumstances  clearly,  she  would  strongly  object 
to  being  exhibited  in  this  way — to  allowing  her- 
self to  be  used  as  a  model  for  a  heroine  of  this 
sort." 

As  Hans  stood  with  his  thumbs  in  the  belt  of 
his  blouse  listening  to  this  speech,  his  face  show- 
ed a  growing  surprise  melting  into  amusement, 
that  at  last  would  have  its  way  in  an  explosive 
laugh ;  but  seeing  that  Deronda  looked  gravely 
offended,  he  checked  himself  to  say, "  Excuse  my 
laughing,  Deronda.  You  never  gave  me  an  ad- 
vantage over  you  before.  If  it  had  been  about 
any  thing  but  my  own  pictures,  I  should  have 
swallowed  every  word  because  you  said  it.  And 
so  you  actually  believe  that  I  should  get  my  five 
pictures  hung  on  the  line  in  a  conspicuous  posi- 
tion, and  carefully  studied  by  the  public  ?  Zounds, 
man !  cider-cup  and  conceit  never  gave  me  half 
such  a  beautiful  dream.  My  pictures  are  likely 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


157 


to  remain  as  private  as  the  utmost  hypersensi- 
tiveness  could  desire." 

Hans  turned  to  paint  again  as  a  way  of  filling 
up  awkward  pauses.  Deronda  stood  perfectly 
still,  recognizing  his  mistake  as  to  publicity,  but 
also  conscious  that  his  repugnance  was  not  much 
diminished.  He  was  the  reverse  of  satisfied,  ei- 
ther with  himself  or  with  Hans ;  but  the  power 
of  being  quiet  carries  a  man  well  through  mo- 
ments of  embarrassment.  Hans  had  a  reverence 
for  his  friend  which  made  him  feel  a  sort  of  shy- 
ness at  Deronda's  being  in  the  wrong ;  but  it  was 
not  in  his  nature  to  give  up  any  thing  readily, 
though  it  were  only  a  whim — or,  rather,  especial- 
ly if  it  were  a  whim,  and  he  presently  went  on, 
painting  the  while : 

"  But  even  supposing  I  had  a  public  rushing 
after  my  pictures  as  if  they  were  a  railway  series, 
including  nurses,  babies,  and  bonnet-boxes,  I  can't 
see  any  justice  in  your  objection.  Every  painter 
worth  remembering  has  painted  the  face  he  ad- 
mired most,  as  oftenr'as  he  could.  It  is  a  part  of 
his  soul  that  goes  out  into  his  pictures.  He  dif- 
fuses its  influence  in  that  way.  Ho  puts  what 
he  hates  into  a  caricature.  He  puts  what  he 
adores  into  some  sacred,  heroic  form.  If  a  man 
could  paint  the  woman  he  loves  a  thousand  times 
as  the  Stella  Maris  to  put  courage  into  the  sail- 
ors on  board  a  thousand  ships,  so  much  the  more 
honor  to  her.  Isn't  that  better  than  painting  a 
piece  of  staring  immodesty  and  calling  it  by  a 
worshipful  name  ?" 

"  Every  objection  can  be  answered  if  you  take 
broad  ground  enough,  Hans :  no  special  question 
of  conduct  can  be  properly  settled  in  that  way," 
said  Deronda,  with  a  touch  of  peremptoriness. 
"  I  might  admit  all  your  generalities,  and  yet  be 
right  in  saying  you  ought  not  to  publish  Mirah's 
face  as  a  model  for  Berenice.  But  I  give  up  the 
question  of  publicity.  I  was  unreasonable  there." 
Deronda  hesitated  a  moment.  "  Still,  even  as  a 
private  affair,  there  might  be  good  reasons  for 
your  not  indulging  yourself  too  much  in  painting 
her  from  the  point  of  view  you  mention.  You 
must  feel  that  her  situation  at  present  is  a  very 
delicate  one ;  and  until  she  is  in  more  independ- 
ence, she  should  be  kept  as  carefully  as  a  bit  of 
Venetian  glass,  for  fear  of  shaking  her  out  of  the 
safe  place  she  is  lodged  in.  Are  you  quite  sure 
of  your  own  discretion  ?  Excuse  me,  Hans.  My 
having  found  her  binds  me  to  watch  over  her. 
Do  you  understand  me  ?" 

"  Perfectly,"  said  Hans,  turning  his  face  into  a 
good-humored  smile.  "  You  have  the  very  justi- 
fiable opinion  of  me  that  I  am  likely  to  shatter  all 
the  glass  in  my  way,  and  break  my  own  skull  into 
the  bargain.  Quite  fair.  Since  I  got  into  the 
scrape  of  being  born,  every  thing  I  have  liked 
best  has  been  a  scrape  either  for  myself  or  some- 
body else.  Every  thing  I  have  taken  to  heartily 
has  somehow  turned  into  a  scrape.  My  painting 
is  the  last  scrape;  and  I  shall  be  all  my  life 
getting  out  of  it.  You  think  now  I  shall  get  into 
a  scrape  at  home.  No ;  I  am  regenerate.  You 
think  I  must  be  over  head  and  ears  in  love  with 
Mirah.  Quite  right ;  so  I  am.  But  you  think  I 
shall  scream  and  plunge  and  spoil  every  thing. 
There  you  are  mistaken  —  excusably,  but  tran- 
scendently  mistaken.  I  have  undergone  baptism 
by  immersion.  Awe  takes  care  of  me.  Ask  the 
little  mother." 

"  You  don't  reckon  a  hopeless  love  among  your 


scrapes,  then  ?"  said  Deronda,  whose  voice  seem- 
ed to  get  deeper  as  Hans's  went  higher. 

"I  don't  mean  to  call  mine  hopeless,"  said 
Hans,  with  provoking  coolness,  laying  down  his 
tools,  thrusting  his  thumbs  into  his  belt,  and 
moving  away  a  little,  as  if  to  contemplate  his 
picture  more  deliberately. 

"  My  dear  fellow,  you  are  only  preparing  mis- 
ery for  yourself,"  said  Deronda,  decisively.  "  She 
would  not  marry  a  Christian,  even  if  she  loved 
him.  Have  you  heard  her — of  course  you  have 
— heard  her  speak  of  her  people  and  her  religion  ?" 

"  That  can't  last,"  said  Hans.  "  She  will  see 
no  Jew  who  is  tolerable.  Every  male  of  that 
race  is  insupportable — '  insupportably  advancing' 
— his  nose." 

"She  may  rejoin  her  family.  That  is  what 
she  longs  for.  Her  mother  and  brother  are 
probably  strict  Jews." 

"I'll  turn  proselyte  if  she  wishes  it,"  said 
Hans,  with  a  shrug  and  a  laugh. 

"  Don't  talk  nonsense,  Hans.  I  thought  you 
professed  a  serious  love  for  her,"  said  Deronda, 
getting  heated. 

"  So  I  do.    You  think  it  desperate,  but  I  don't." 

"I  know  nothing;  I  can't  tell  what  has  hap- 
pened. We  must  be  prepared  for  surprises.  But 
I  can  hardly  imagine  a  greater  surprise  to  me 
than  that  there  should  have  seemed  to  be  any 
thing  in  Mirah's  sentiments  for  you  to  found  a 
romantic  hope  on."  Deronda  felt  that  he  was 
too  contemptuous. 

"  I  don't  found  my  romantic  hopes  on  a  wom- 
an's sentiments,"  said  Hans,  perversely  inclined 
to  be  the  merrier  when  he  was  addressed  with 
gravity.  "  I  go  to  science  and  philosophy  for  my 
romance.  Nature  designed  Mirah  to  fall  in  love 
with  me.  The  amalgamation  of  races  demands 
it ;  the  mitigation  of  human  ugliness  demands  it ; 
the  affinity  of  contrasts  assures  it.  I  am  the  ut- 
most contrast  to  Mirah — a  bleached  Christian, 
who  can't  sing  two  notes  in  tune.  Who  has  a 
chance  against  me  ?" 

"  I  see  now ;  it  was  all  persiflage.  You  don't 
mean  a  word  of  what  you  say,  Meyrick,"  said 
Deronda,  laying  his  hand  on  Meyrick's  shoulder, 
and  speaking  in  a  tone  of  cordial  relief.  "  I  was 
a  wiseacre  to  answer  you  seriously." 

"  Upon  my  honor  I  do  mean  it,  though,"  said 
Hans,  facing  round  and  laying  his  left  hand  on 
Deronda's  shoulder,  so  that  their  eyes  fronted 
each  other  closely.  "  I  am  at  the  confessional. 
I  meant  to  tell  you  as  soon  as  you  came.  My 
mother  says  you  are  Mirah's  guardian,  and  she 
thinks  herself  responsible  to  you  for  every  breath 
that  falls  on  Mirah  in  her  house.  Well,  I  love 
her — I  worship  her — I  won't  despair — I  mean  to 
deserve  her." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  you  can't  do  it,"  said  Deron- 
da, quickly. 

"  I  should  have  said,  I  mean  to  try." 

"You  can't  keep  your  resolve,  Hans.  You 
used  to  resolve  what  you  would  do  for  your  moth- 
er and  sisters." 

"  You  have  a  right  to  reproach  me,  old  fellow," 
said  Hans,  gently. 

"Perhaps  I  am  ungenerous,"  said  Deronda, 
not  apologetically,  however.  "Yet  it  can't  be 
ungenerous  to  warn  you  that  you  are  indulging 
mad,  Quixotic  expectations." 

"  Who  will  be  hurt  but  myself,  then  ?"  said 
Hans'  putting  out  his  lip.  "  I  am  not  going  to 


168 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


say  any  thing  to  her,  unless  I  felt  sure  of  the  an- 
swer. I  dare  not  ask  the  oracles :  I  prefer  a 
cheerful  caliginosity,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
might  say.  I  would  rather  run  my  chance  there 
and  lose,  than  be  sure  of  winning  any  where  else. 
And  I  don't  mean  to  swallow  the  poison  of  de- 
spair, though  you  are  disposed  to  thrust  it  on  me. 
I  am  giving  up  wine,  so  let  me  get  a  little  drunk 
on  hope  and  vanity." 

"  With  all  my  heart,  if  it  will  do  you  any  good," 
said  Deronda,  loosing  Hans's  shoulder,  with  a  lit- 
tle push.  He  made  his  tone  kindly,  but  his  words 
were  from  the  lip  only.  As  to  his  real  feeling  he 
was  silenced. 

He  was  conscious  of  that  peculiar  irritation 
which  will  sometimes  befall  the  man  whom  others 
are  inclined  to  trust  as  a  mentor — the  irritation  of 
perceiving  that  he  is  supposed  to  be  entirely  off 
the  same  plane  of  desire  and  temptation  as  those 
who  confess  to  him.  Our  guides,  we  pretend,  must 
be  sinless :  as  if  those  were  not  often  the  best 
teachers  who  only  yesterday  got  corrected  for 
their  mistakes.  Throughout  their  friendship  De- 
ronda had  been  used  to  Hans's  egotism,  but  he 
had  never  before  felt  intolerant  of  it :  when  Hans, 
habitually  pouring  out  his  own  feelings  and  af- 
fairs, had  never  cared  for  any  detail  in  return, 
and,  if  he  chanced  to  know  any,  had  soon  for- 
gotten it,  Deronda  had  been  inwardly  as  well  as 
outwardly  indulgent — nay,  satisfied.  But  now  he 
noted  with  some  indignation,  all  the  stronger  be- 
cause it  must  not  be  betrayed,  Hans's  evident  as- 
sumption that  for  any  danger  of  rivalry  or  jealousy 
in  relation  to  Mirah,  Deronda  was  as  much  out  of 
the  question  as  the  angel  Gabriel.  It  is  one  thing 
to  be  resolute  in  placing  one's  self  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  another  to  endure  that  others  should 
perform  that  exclusion  for  us.  He  had  expected 
that  Hans  would  give  him  trouble :  what  he  had 
not  expected  was  that  the  trouble  would  have  a 
strong  element  of  personal  feeling.  And  he  was 
rather  ashamed  that  Hans's  hopes  caused  him 
uneasiness  in  spite  of  his  well-warranted  convic- 
tion that  they  would  never  be  fulfilled.  They  had 
raised  an  image  of  Mirah  changing ;  and  however 
he  might  protest  that  the  change  would  not  hap- 
pen, the  protest  kept  up  the  unpleasant  image. 
Altogether,  poor  Hans  seemed  to  be  entering  into 
Deronda's  experience  in  a  disproportionate  man- 
ner— going  beyond  his  part  of  rescued  prodigal, 
and  rousing  a  feeling  quite  distinct  from  compas- 
sionate affection. 

When  Deronda  went  to  Chelsea  he  was  not 
made  as  comfortable  as  he  ought  to  have  been  by 
Mrs.  Meyrick's  evident  release  from  anxiety  about 
the  beloved  but  incalculable  son.  Mirah  seemed 
livelier  than  before,  and  for  the  first  time  he  saw 
her  laugh.  It  was  when  they  were  talking  of 
Hans,  he  being  naturally  the  mother's  first  topic. 
Mirah  wished  to  know  if  Deronda  had  seen  Mr. 
Hans  going  through  a  sort  of  character  piece  with- 
out changing  his  dress. 

"  He  passes  from  one  figure  to  another  as  if  he 
were  a  bit  of  flame,  where  you  fancied  the  figures 
without  seeing  them,"  said  Mirah,  full  of  her  sub- 
ject ;  "  he  is  so  wonderfully  quick.  I  used  never  to 
like  comic  things  on  the  stage — they  were  dwelt 
on  too  long ;  but  all  in  one  minute  Mr.  Hans 
makes  himself  a  blind  bard,  and  then  Rienzi  ad- 
dressing the  Romans,  and  then  an  opera  dancer, 
and  then  a  desponding  young  gentleman — I  am 
sorry  for  them  all,  and  yet  I  laugh,  all  in'one." 


Here  Mirah  gave  a  little  laugh  that  might  have  en- 
tered into  a  song. 

"  We  hardly  thought  that  Mirah  could  laugh 
till  Hans  came,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  seeing  that 
Deronda,  like  herself,  was  observing  the  pretty 
picture. 

"  Hans  seems  in  great  force  just  now,"  said 
Deronda,  hi  a  tone  of  congratulation.  "  I  don't 
wonder  at  his  enlivening  you." 

"He's  been  just  perfect  ever  since  he  came 
back,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  keeping  to  herself  the 
next  clause — "  if  it  will  but  last." 

"  It  is  a  great  happiness,"  said  Mirah,  "  to  see' 
the  son  and  brother  come  into  this  dear  home. 
And  I  hear  them  all  talk  about  what  they  did 
together  when  they  were  little.  That  seems  like 
heaven,  to  have  a  mother  and  brother  who  talk  in 
that  way.  I  have  never  had  it." 

"  Nor  I,"  said  Deronda,  involuntarily. 

"  No  ?"  said  Mirah,  regretfully.  "  I  wish  you 
had.  I  wish  you  had  had  every  good."  The  last 
words  were  uttered  with  a  serious  ardor  as  if 
they  had  been  part  of  a  litany,  while  her  eyes 
were  fixed  on  Deronda,  who,  with  his  elbow  on 
the  back  of  his  chair,  was  contemplating  her  by 
the  new  light  of  the  impression  she  had  made  on 
Hans,  and  the  possibility  of  her  being  attracted 
by  that  extraordinary  contrast.  It  was  no  more 
than  what  had  happened  on  each  former  visit  of 
his,  that  Mirah  appeared  to  enjoy  speaking  of 
what  she  felt  very  much  as  a  little  girl  fresh  from 
school  pours  forth  spontaneously  all  the  long- 
repressed  chat  for  which  she  has  found  willing 
ears.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  Mirah  was 
among  those  whom  she  entirely  trusted,  and  her 
original  visionary  impression  that  Deronda  was  a 
divinely  sent  messenger  hung  about  his  image 
still,  stirring  always  anew  the  disposition  to  reli- 
ance and  openness.  It  was  in  this  way  she  took 
what  might  have  been  the  injurious  flattery  of 
admiring  attention  into  which  her  helpless  de- 
pendence had  been  suddenly  transformed :  every 
one  around  her  watched  for  her  looks  and  words, 
and  the  effect  on  her  was  simply  that  of  having 
passed  from  a  stifling  imprisonment  into  an  ex- 
hilarating air  which  made  speech  and  action  a 
delight.  To  her  mind  it  was  all  a  gift  from  oth- 
ers' goodness.  But  that  word  of  Deronda's  im- 
plying that  there  had  been  some  lack  in  his  life 
which  might  be  compared  with  any  thing  she 
had  known  in  hers,  was  an  entirely  new  inlet  of 
thought  about  him.  After  her  first  expression 
of  sorrowful  surprise  she  went  on : 

"  But  Mr.  Hans  said  yesterday  that  you  thought 
so  much  of  others  you  hardly  wanted  any  tiling 
for  yourself.  He  told  us  a  wonderful  story  of 
Bouddha  giving  himself  to  the  famished  tigresa 
to  save  her  and  her  little  ones  from  starving. 
And  he  said  you  were  like  Bouddha.  That  is 
what  we  all  imagine  of  you." 

"  Pray  don't  imagine  that,"  said  Deronda,  who 
had  lately  been  finding  such  suppositions  rath- 
er exasperating.  "  Even  if  it  were  true  that  I 
thought  so  much  of  others,  it  would  not  follow 
that  I  had  no  wants  for  myself.  When  Bouddha 
let  the  tigress  eat  him  he  might  have  been  very 
hungry  himself." 

"  Perhaps  if  he  was  starved  he  would  not  mind 
so  much  about  being  eaten,"  said  Mab,  shyly. 

"  Please  don't  think  that,  Mab ;  it  takes  away 
the  beauty  of  the  action,"  said  Mirah. 

"  But  if  it  were  true,  Mirah  ?"  said  the  rational 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


169 


Amy,  having  a  half-holiday  from  her  teaching; 
"  you  always  take  what  is  beautiful  as  if  it  were 
true." 

"  So  it  is,"  said  Mirah,  gently.  "  If  people  have 
thought  what  is  the  most  beautiful  and  the  best 
thing,  it  must  be  true.  It  is  always  there." 

"Now, Mirah,  what  do  you  mean?"  said  Amy. 

"  I  understand  her,"  said  Deronda,  coming  to 
the  rescue.  "  It  is  a  truth  in  thought,  though  it 
may  never  have  been  carried  out  in  action.  It 
lives  as  an  idea.  Is  that  it?"  He  turned  to 
Mirah,  who  was  listening  with  a  blind  look  in 
her  lovely  eyes. 

"  It  must  be  that,  because  you  understand  me, 
but  I  can  not  quite  explain,"  said  Mirah,  rather 
abstractedly,  still  searching  for  some  expression. 

"  But  was  it  beautiful  for  Bouddha  to  let  the 
tiger  eat  him  ?"  said  Amy,  changing  her  ground. 
"  It  would  be  a  bad  pattern." 

"  The  world  would  get  full  of  fat  tigers,"  said 
Mab. 

Deronda  laughed,  but  defended  the  myth.  "  It 
is  like  a  passionate  word,"  he  said ;  "  the  exagger- 
ation is  a  flash  of  fervor.  It  is  an  extreme  image 
of  what  is  happening  every  day — the  transmuta- 
tion of  self." 

"  I  think  I  can  say  what  I  mean  now,"  said 
Mirah,  who  had  not  heard  the  intermediate  talk. 
"  When  the  best  thing  comes  into  our  thoughts, 
it  is  like  what  my  mother  has  been  to  me.  She 
has  been  just  as  really  with  me  as  all  the  other 
people  about  me—often  more  really  with  me." 

Deronda,  inwardly  wincing  under  this  illustra- 
tion, which  brought  other  possible  realities  about 
that  mother  vividly  before  him,  presently  turned 
the  conversation  by  saying :  "  But  we  must  not  get 
too  far  away  from  practical  matters.  I  came,  for 
one  thing,  to  tell  of  an  interview  I  had  yesterday, 
which  I  hope  Mirah  will  find  to  have  been  useful  to 
her.  It  was  with  Klesmer,  the  great  pianist." 

"Ah?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  with  satisfaction. 
"You  think  he  will  help 'her?" 

"  I  hope  so.  He  is  very  much  occupied,  but 
has  promised  to  fix  a  time  for  receiving  and  hear- 
ing Miss  Lapidoth,  as  we  must  learn  to  call  her" 
— here  Deronda  smiled  at  Mirah — "if  she  con- 
sents to  go  to  him." 

"  I  shall  be  very  grateful,"  said  Mirah,  calmly. 
"  He  wants  to  hear  me  sing,  before  he  can  judge 
whether  I  ought  to  be  helped." 

Deronda  was  struck  with  her  plain  sense  about 
these  matters  of  practical  concern. 

"  It  will  not  be  at  all  trying  to  you,  I  hope,  if 
Mrs.  Meyrick  will  kindly  go  with  you  to  Klesmer's 
house." 

"  Oh  no,  not  at  all  trying.  I  have  been  doing 
that  all  my  life — I  mean,  told  to  do  things  that 
others  may  j  udge  of  me.  And  I  have  gone  through 
a  bad  trial  of  that  sort.  I  am  prepared  to  bear 
it,  and  do  some  very  small  thing.  Is  Klesmer  a 
severe  man  ?" 

"  He  is  peculiar,  but  I  have  not  had  experience 
enough  of  him  to  know  whether  he  would  be  what 
you  would  call  severe.  I  know  he  is  kind-hearted 
— kind  in  action,  if  not  in  speech." 

"  I  have  been  used  to  be  frowned  at  and  not 
praised,"  said  Mirah. 

"  By-the-bye,  Klesmer  frowns  a  good  deal,"  said 
Deronda,  "  but  there  is  often  a  sort  of  smile  in 
his  eyes  all  the  while.  Unhappily  he  wears  spec- 
tacles, so  you  must  catch  him  in  the  right  light  to 
see  the  smile." 


"  I  shall  not  be  frightened,"  said  Mirah.  "  If 
he  were  like  a  roaring  lion,  he  only  wants  me  to 
sing.  I  shall  do  what  I  can." 

"  Then  I  feel  sure  you  will  not  mind  being  in- 
vited to  sing  in  Lady  Mallinger's  drawing-room," 
said  Deronda.  "  She  intends  to  ask  you  next 
month,  and  will  invite  many  ladies  to  hear  you, 

ho  are  likely  to  want  lessons  from  you  for  their 
daughters." 

"  How  fast  we  are  mounting !"  said  Mrs.  Mey- 
rick, with  delight.  "  You  never  thought  of  get- 
ting grand  so  quickly,  Mirah." 

•I  am  a  little  frightened  at  being  called  Miss 
Lapidoth,"  said  Mirah,  coloring  with  a  new  un- 
easiness. "  Might  I  be  called  Cohen  ?" 

"  I  understand  you,"  said  Deronda,  promptly. 
"  But,  I  assure  you,  you  must  not  be  called  Cohen. 
The  name  is  inadmissible  for  a  singer.  This  is 
one  of  the  trifles  in  which  we  must  conform  to 
vulgar  prejudice.  We  could  choose  some  other 
name,  however — such  as  singers  ordinarily  choose 
— an  Italian  or  Spanish  name,  which  would  suit 
your  physique."  To  Deronda  just  now  the  name 
Cohen  was  equivalent  to  the  ugliest  of  yellow 
badges. 

Mirah  reflected  a  little,  anxiously,  then  said, 
"No.  If  Cohen  will  not  do,  I  will  keep  the 
name  I  have  been  called  by.  I  will  not  hide  my- 
self. I  have  friends  to  protect  me.  And  now — 
if  my  father  were  very  miserable  and  wanted 
help — no,"  she  said,  looking  at  Mrs.  Meyrick,  "  I 
should  think  then  that  he  was  perhaps  crying 
as  I  used  to  see  him,  and  had  nobody  to  pity 
him,  and  I  had  hidden  myself  from  him.  He  had 
none  belonging  to  him  but  me.  Others  that 
made  friends  with  him  always  left  him." 

"  Keep  to  what  you  feel  right,  my  dear  child," 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  /  would  not  persuade  you 
to  the  contrary."  For  her  own  part,  she  had  no 
patience  or  pity  for  that  father,  and  would  have 
left  him  to  his  crying. 

Deronda  was  saying  to  himself,  "  I  am  rather 
base  to  be  angry  with  Hans.  How  can  he  help 
being  in  love  with  her?  But  it  is  too  absurdly 
presumptuous  for  him  even  to  frame  the  idea  of 
appropriating  her,  and  a  sort  of  blasphemy  to  sup- 
pose that  she  could  possibly  give  herself  to  him." 

What  would  it  be  for  Daniel  Deronda  to  enter- 
tain such  thoughts  ?  He  was  not  one  who  could 
quite  naively  introduce  himself  where  he  had  just 
excluded  his  friend,  yet  it  was  undeniable  that 
what  had  just  happened  made  a  new  stage  in  his 
feeling  toward  Mirah.  But  apart  from  other 
grounds  for  self-repression,  reasons  both  definite 
and  vague  made  him  shut  away  that  question  as 
he  might  have  shut  up  a  half -opened  writing  that 
would  have  carried  his  imagination  too  far  and 
given  too  much  shape  to  presentiments.  Might 
there  not  come  a  disclosure  which  would  hold  the 
missing  determination  of  his  course  ?  What  did 
he  really  know  about  his  origin  ?  Strangely  in 
these  latter  months,  when  it  seemed  right  that  he 
should  exert  his  will  in  the  choice  of  a  destina- 
tion, the  passion  of  his  nature  had  got  more  and 
more  locked  by  this  uncertainty.  The  disclosure 
might  bring  its  pain — indeed,  the  likelihood  seem- 
ed to  him  to  be  all  on  that  side ;  but  if  it  helped 
him  to  make  his  life  a  sequence  which  would  take 
the  form  of  duty— if  it  saved  him  from  having  to 
make  an  arbitrary  selection  where  he  felt  no  pre- 
ponderance of  desire  ?  Still  more  he  wanted  to 
escape  standing  as  a  critic  outside  the  activities  of 


160 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


men,  stiffened  into  the  ridiculous  attitude  of  self- 
assigned  superiority.  His  chief  tether  was  his 
early  inwrought  affection  for  Sir  Hugo,  making 
him  gratefully  deferential  to  wishes  with  which 
he  had  little  agreement ;  but  gratitude  had  been 
sometimes  disturbed  by  doubts  which  were  near 
reducing  it  to  a  fear  of  being  ungrateful.  Many 
of  us  complain  that  half  our  birthright  is  sharp 
duty:  Deronda  was  more  inclined  to  complain 
that  he  was  robbed  of  this  half ;  yet  he  accused 
himself,  as  he  would  have  accused  another,  of  be- 
ing weakly  self-conscious  and  wanting  in  resolve. 
He  was  the  reverse  of  that  type  painted  for  us 
in  Faulconbridge  and  Edmund  of  Gloster,  whose 
coarse  ambition  for  personal  success  is  inflamed 
by  a  defiance  of  accidental  disadvantages.  To 
Daniel  the  words  Father  and  Mother  had  the  al- 
tar-fire in  them ;  and  the  thought  of  all  closest 
relations  of  our  nature  held  still  something  of  the 
mystic  power  which  had  made  his  neck  and  ears 
burn  in  boyhood.  The  average  man  may  regard 
this  sensibility  on  the  question  of  birth  as  prepos- 
terous and  hardly  credible ;  but  with  the  utmost 
respect  for  his  knowledge  as  the  rock  from  which 
all  other  knowledge  is  hewn,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  many  well-proved  facts  are  dark  to  the  aver- 
age man,  even  concerning  the  action  of  his  own 
heart  and  the  structure  of  his  own  retina.  A 
century  ago  he  and  all  his  forefathers  had  not 
had  the  slightest  notion  of  that  electric  discharge 
by  means  of  which  they  had  all  wagged  their 
tongues  mistakenly,  any  more  than  they  were 
awake  to  the  secluded  anguish  of  exceptional  sen- 
sitiveness into  which  many  a  carelessly  begotten 
child  of  man  is  born. 

Perhaps  the  ferment  was  all  the  stronger  in 
Deronda's  mind  because  he  had  never  had  a  con- 
fidant to  whom  he  could  open  himself  on  these 
delicate  subjects.  He  had  always  been  leaned  on 
instead  of  being  invited  to  lean.  Sometimes  he 
had  longed  for  the  sort  of  friend  to  whom  he 
might  possibly  unfold  his  experience:  a  young 
man  like  himself  who  sustained  a  private  grief, 
and  was  not  too  confident  about  his  own  career ; 
speculative  enough  to  understand  every  moral  dif- 
ficulty, yet  socially  susceptible,  as  he  himself  was, 
and  having  every  outward  sign  of  equality  either 
in  bodily  or  in  spiritual  wrestling — for  he  had 
found  it  impossible  to  reciprocate  confidences 
with  one  who  looked  up  to  him.  But  he  had  no 
expectation  of  meeting  the  friend  he  imagined. 
Deronda's  was  not  one  of  those  quiveringly  poised 
natures  that  lend  themselves  to  second-sight. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIIL 

There  be  who  hold  that  the  deeper  tragedy  were  a 
Prometheus  Bound  not  after  but  before  he  had  well  got 
the  celestial  fire  Into  the  vdpflnf  whereby  it  might  be 
conveyed  to  mortals:  thrust  by  the  Kratos  and  Bia  of 
Instituted  methods  Into  a  solitude  of  despised  ideas, 
fastened  in  throbbing  helplessness  by  the  fatal  pressure 
of  poverty  and  disease— a  solitude  where  many  pass 
by,  but  none  regard. 

"  SECOND-SIGHT"  is  a  flag  over  disputed  ground. 
But  it  is  matter  of  knowledge  that  there  are  per- 
sons whose  yearnings,  conceptions — nay,  traveled 
conclusions — continually  take  the  form  of  images 
which  have  a  foreshadowing  power:  the  deed 
they  would  do  starts  up  before  them  in  complete 
shape,  making  a  coercive  type;  the  event  they 
hunger  for  or  dread  rises  into  vision  with  a  seed- 


like  growth,  feeding  itself  fast  on  unnumbered 
impressions.  They  are  not  always  the  less  capa- 
ble of  the  argumentative  process,  nor  less  sane 
than  the  commonplace  calculators  of  the  market : 
sometimes  it  may  be  that  their  natures  have 
manifold  openings,  like  the  hundred-gated  Thebes, 
where  there  may  naturally  be  a  greater  and  more 
miscellaneous  inrush  than  through  a  narrow 
beadle-watched  portal.  No  doubt  there  are  ab- 
ject specimens  of  the  visionary,  as  there  is  a 
minim  mammal  which  you  might  imprison  in  the 
finger  of  your  glove.  That  small  relative  of  the 
elephant  has  no  harm  in  him ;  but  what  great 
mental  or  social  type  is  free  from  specimens 
whose  insignificance  is  both  ugly  and  noxious  ? 
One  is  afraid  to  think  of  all  that  the  genus  "  pa- 
triot" embraces ;  or  of  the  elbowing  there  might 
be  at  the  day  of  judgment  for  those  who  ranked 
as  Authors,  and  brought  volumes  either  in  their 
hands  or  on  trucks. 

This  apology  for  inevitable  kinship  is  meant  to 
usher  in  some. facts  about  Mordecai,  whose  figure 
had  bitten  itself  into  Deronda's  mind  as  a  new 
question  which  he  felt  an  interest  in  getting  an- 
swered. But  the  interest  was  no  more  than  a 
vaguely  expectant  suspense :  the  consumptive- 
looking  Jew,  apparently  a  fervid  student  of  some 
kind,  getting  his  crust  by  a  quiet  handicraft,  like 
Spinoza,  fitted  into  none  of  Deronda's  anticipa- 
tions. 

It  was  otherwise  with  the  effect  of  their  meet- 
ing on  Mordecai.  For  many  winters,  while  he 
had  been  conscious  of  an  ebbing  physical  life,  and 
a  widening  spiritual  loneliness,  all  his  passionate 
desire  had  concentred  itself  in  the  yearning  for 
some  young  ear  into  which  he  could  pour  hia 
mind  as  a  testament,  some  soul  kindred  enough 
to  accept  the  spiritual  product  of  his  own  brief, 
painful  life  as  a  mission  to  be  executed.  It  was 
remarkable  that  the  hopefulness  which  is  often 
the  beneficent  illusion  of  consumptive  patients 
was  in  Mordecai  wholly  diverted  from  the  pros- 
pect of  bodily  recovery,  and  carried  into  the  cur- 
rent of  this  yearning  for  transmission.  The 
yearning,  which  had  panted  upward  from  out  of 
overwhelming  discouragements,  had  grown  into 
a  hope — the  hope  into  a  confident  belief,  which, 
instead  of  being  checked  by  the  clear  conception 
he  had  of  his  hastening  decline,  took  rather  the 
intensity  of  expectant  faith  in  a  prophecy  which 
has  only  brief  space  to  get  fulfilled  in. 

Some  years  had  now  gone  since  he  had  first 
begun  to  measure  men  with  a  keen  glance,  search- 
ing for  a  possibility  which  became  more  and  more 
a  distinct  conception.  Such  distinctness  as  it 
had  at  first  was  reached  chiefly  by  a  method  of 
contrast :  he  wanted  to  find  a  man  who  differed 
from  himself.  Tracing  reasons  in  that  self  for 
the  rebuffs  he  had  met  with  and  the  hinder- 
ances  that  beset  him,  he  imagined  a  man  who 
would  have  all  the  elements  necessary  for  sym- 
pathy with  him,  but  in  an  embodiment  unlike  his 
own :  he  must  be  a  Jew,  intellectually  cultured, 
morally  fervid — in  all  this  a  nature  ready  to  be 
plenished  from  Mordecai's ;  but  his  face  and 
frame  must  be  beautiful  and  strong,  he  must  have 
been  used  to  all  the  refinements  of  social  life,  his 
voice  must  flow  with  a  full  and  easy  current,  his 
circumstances  be  free  from  sordid  need :  he  must 
glorify  the  possibilities  of  the  Jew,  not  sit  and 
wander  as  Mordecai  did,  bearing  the  stamp  of  his 
people  amidst  the  signs  of  poverty  and  waning 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


161 


breath.  Sensitive  to  physical  characteristics,  he 
had,  both  abroad  and  in  England,  looked  at  pic- 
tures as  well  as  men,  and  in  a  vacant  hour  he 
had  sometimes  lingered  in  the  National  Gallery 
in  search  of  paintings  which  might  feed  his  hope- 
fulness with  grave  and  noble  types  of  the  human 
form,  such  as  might  well  belong  to  men  of  his 
own  race.  But  he  returned  in  disappointment. 
The  instances  are  scattered  but  thinly  over  the 
galleries  of  Europe,  in  which  the  fortune  or  se- 
lection even  of  the  chief  masters  has  given  to  Art 
a  face  at  once  young,  grand,  and  beautiful,  where, 
if  there  is  any  melancholy,  it  is  no  feeble  passiv- 
ity, but  enters  into  the  foreshadowed  capability 
of  heroism. 

Some  observant  persons  may  perhaps  remem- 
ber his  emaciated  figure,  and  dark  eyes  deep  in 
their  sockets,  as  he  stood  in  front  of  a  picture 
that  had  touched  him  either  to  new  or  habitual 
meditation :  he  commonly  wore  a  cloth  cap  with 
black  fur  round  it,  which  no  painter  would  have 
asked  him  to  take  off.  But  spectators  would  be 
likely  to  think  of  him  as  an  odd-looking  Jew  who 
probably  got  money  out  of  pictures;  and  Mor- 
decai,  when  he  noticed  them,  was  perfectly  aware 
of  the  impression  he  made.  Experience  had  ren- 
dered him  morbidly  alive  to  the  effect  of  a  man's 
poverty  and  other  physical  disadvantages  in  cheap- 
ening his  ideas,  unless  they  are  those  of  a  Peter 
the  Hermit  who  has  a  tocsin  for  the  rabble.  But 
he  was  too  sane  and  generous  to  attribute  his 
spiritual  banishment  solely  to  the  excusable  preju- 
dices of  others :  certain  incapacities  of  his  own 
had  made  the  sentence  of  exclusion ;  and  hence 
it  was  that  his  imagination  had  constructed  an- 
other man  who  would  be  something  more  ample 
than  the  second  soul  bestowed,  according  to  the 
notion  of  the  Cabalists,  to  help  out  the  insuffi- 
cient first — who  would  be  a  blooming  human  life, 
ready  to  incorporate  all  that  was  worthiest  in  an 
existence  whose  visible,  palpable  part  was  burn- 
ing its/elf  fast  away.  His  inward  need  for  the 
conception  of  this  expanded,  prolonged  self  was 
reflected  as  an  outward  necessity.  The  thoughts 
of  his  heart  (that  ancient  phrase  best  shadows 
the  truth)  seemed  to  him  too  precious,  too  closely 
inwoven  with  the  growth  of  things,  not  to  have  a 
further  destiny.  And  as  the  more  beautiful,  the 
stronger,  the  more  executive  self  took  shape  in 
his  mind,  he  loved  it  beforehand  with  an  affection 
half  identifying,  half  contemplative  and  grateful. 

Mordecai's  mind  wrought  so  constantly  in  im- 
ages that  his  coherent  trains  of  thought  often 
resembled  the  significant  dreams  attributed  to 
sleepers  by  waking  persons  in  their  most  in- 
ventive moments ;  nay,  they  often  resembled  gen- 
uine dreams  in  their  way  of  breaking  off  the  pas- 
sage from  the  known  to  the  unknown.  Thus,  for 
a  long  while,  he  habitually  thought  of  the  Being 
answering  to  his  need  as  one  distantly  approach- 
ing or  turning  his  back  toward  him,  darkly  paint- 
ed against  a  golden  sky.  The  reason  of  the  gold- 
en sky  lay  in  one  of  Mordecai's  habits.  He  was 
keenly  alive  to  some  poetic  aspects  of  London; 
and  a  favorite  resort  of  his,  when  strength  and 
leisure  allowed,  was  to  some  one  of  the  bridges, 
especially  about  sunrise  or  sunset.  Even  when 
he  was  bending  over  watch  wheels  and  trinkets, 
or  seated  in  a  small  upper  room  looking  out  on 
dingy  bricks  and  dingy  cracked  windows,  his 
imagination  spontaneously  planted  him  on  some 
spot  where  he  had  a  far-stretching  scene;  his 
L 


thought  went  on  in  wide  spaces ;  and  whenever 
he  could,  he  tried  to  have  in  reality  the  influences 
of  a  large  sky.  Leaning  on  the  parapet  of  Black- 
friars  Bridge,  and  gazing  meditatively,  the  breadth 
and  calm  of  the  river,  with  its  long  vista  half 
hazy,  half  luminous,  the  grand  dim  masses  or  tall 
forms  of  buildings  which  were  the  signs  of  world- 
commerce,  the  on-coming  of  boats  and  barges  from 
the  still  distance  into  sound  and  color,  entered 
into  his  mood  and  blent  themselves  indistinguish- 
ably  with  his  thinking,  as  a  fine  symphony  to 
which  we  can  hardly  be  said  to  listen  makes  a 
medium  that  bears  up  our  spiritual  wings.  Thus 
it  happened  that  the  figure  representative  of 
Mordecai's  longing  was  mentally  seen  darkened 
by  the  excess  of  light  in  the  aerial  background. 
But  in  the  inevitable  progress  of  his  imagination 
toward  fuller  detail  he  ceased  to  see  the  figure 
with  its  back  toward  him.  It  began  to  advance, 
and  a  face  became  discernible  ;  the  words  youth, 
beauty,  refinement,  Jewish  birth,  noble  gravity, 
turned  into  hardly  individual  but  typical  form 
and  color :  gathered  from  his  memory  of  faces 
seen  among  the  Jews  of  Holland  and  Bohemia, 
and  from  the  paintings  which  revived  that  mem- 
ory. Reverently  let  it  be  said  of  this  mature 
spiritual  need  that  it  was  akin  to  the  boy's  and 
girl's  picturing  of  the  future  beloved ;  but  the 
stirrings  of  such  young  desire  are  feeble  compared 
with  the  passionate  current  of  an  ideal  life  strain- 
ing to  embody  itself,  made  intense  by  resistance 
to  imminent  dissolution.  The  visionary  form 
became  a  companion  and  auditor,  keeping  a  place 
not  only  in  the  waking  imagination,  but  in  those 
dreams  of  lighter  slumber  of  which  it  is  truest  to 
say,  "  I  sleep,  but  my  heart  is  awake" — when  the 
disturbing  trivial  story  of  yesterday  is  charged 
with  the  impassioned  purpose  of  years. 

Of  late  the  urgency  of  irredeemable  time,  meas- 
ured by  the  gradual  choking  of  life,  had  turned 
Mordecai's  trust  into  an  agitated  watch  for  the 
fulfillment  that  must  be  at  hand.  Was  the  bell 
on  the  verge  of  tolling,  the  sentence  about  to  be 
executed  ?  The  deliverer's  footstep  must  be*  near 
— the  deliverer  who  was  to  rescue  Mordecai's 
spiritual  travail  from  oblivion,  and  give  it  an 
abiding-place  in  the  best  heritage  of  his  people. 
An  insane  exaggeration  of  his  own  value,  even  if 
his  ideas  had  been  as  true  and  precious  as  those 
of  Columbus  or  Nawton,  many  would  have  count- 
ed this  yearning,  taking  it  as  the  sublimer  part 
for  a  man  to  say,  "  If  not  I,  then  another,"  and  to 
hold  cheap  the  meaning  of  his  own  life.  But  the 
fuller  nature  desires  to  be  an  agent,  to  create, 
and  not  merely  to  look  on :  strong  love  hungers 
to  bless,  and  not  merely  to  behold  blessing.  And 
while  there  is  warmth  enough  in  the  sun  to  feed 
an  energetic  life,  there  will  still  be  men  to  feel, 
"  I  am  lord  of  this  moment's  change,  and  will 
charge  it  with  my  soul." 

But  with  that  mingling  of  inconsequence  which 
belongs  to  us  all,  and  not  unhappily,  since  it  saves 
us  from  many  effects  of  mistake,  Mordecai's  con- 
fidence in  the  friend  to  come  did  not  suffice  to 
make  him  passive,  and  he  tried  expedients,  pa- 
thetically humble,  such  as  happened  to  be  within 
his  reach,  for  communicating  something  of  him- 
self. It  was  now  two  years  since  he  had  taken 
up  his  abode  under  Ezra  Cohen's  roof,  where  he 
was  regarded  with  much  good-will  as  a  compound 
of  workman,  dominie,  vessel  of  charity,  inspired 
idiot,  man  of  piety,  and  (if  he  were  inquired  into) 


162 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


dangerous  heretic.  During  that  time  little  Jacob 
had  advanced  into  knickerbockers,  and  into  that 
quickness  of  apprehension  which  has  been  already 
made  manifest  in  relation  to  hardware  and  ex- 
change. He  had  also  advanced  in  attachment  to 
Mordecai,  regarding  him  as  an  inferior,  but  liking 
him  none  the  worse,  and  taking  his  helpful  clev- 
erness as  he  might  have  taken  the  services  of  an 
enslaved  Djinn.  As  for  Mordecai,  he  had  given 
Jacob  his  first  lessons,  and  his  habitual  tender- 
ness easily  turned  into  the  teacher's  fatherhood. 
Though  he  was  fully  conscious  of  the  spiritual 
distance  between  the  parents  and  himself,  and 
would  never  have  attempted  any  communication 
to  them  from  his  peculiar  world,  the  boy  moved 
him  with  that  idealizing  affection  which  merges 
the  qualities  of  the  individual  child  in  the  glory 
of  childhood  and  the  possibilities  of  a  long  fu- 
ture. And  this  feeling  had  drawn  him  on,  at  first 
without  premeditation,  and  afterward  with  con- 
scious purpose,  to  a  sort  of  outpouring  in  the  ear 
of  the  boy  which  might  have  seemed  wild  enough 
to  any  excellent  man  of  business  who  overheard 
it.  But  none  overheard  when  Jacob  went  up  to 
Mordecai's  room  on  a  day,  for  example,  in  which 
there  was  little  work  to  be  done,  or  at  an  hour 
when  the  work  was  ended,  and  after  a  brief  les- 
son in  English  reading  or  in  numeration,  was  in- 
duced to  remain  standing  at  his  teacher's  knees, 
or  chose  to  jump  astride  them,  often  to  the  patient 
fatigue  of  the  wasted  limbs.  The  inducement 
was  perhaps  the  mending  of  a  toy,  or  some  little 
mechanical  device  in  which  Mordecai's  well-prac- 
ticed finger-tips  had  an  exceptional  skill;  and 
with  the  boy  thus  tethered,  he  would  begin  to  re- 
peat a  Hebrew  poem  of  his  own,  into  which  j'ears 
before  he  had  poured  his  first  youthful  ardors  for 
that  conception  of  a  blended  past  and  future 
which  was  the  mistress  of  his  soul,  telling  Jacob 
to  say  the  words  after  him. 

"  The  boy  will  get  them  engraved  within  him," 
thought  Mordecai ;  "  it  is  a  way  of  printing." 

None  readier  than  Jacob  at  this  fascinating 
game«of  imitating  unintelligible  words  ;  and  if  no 
opposing  diversion  occurred,  he  would  sometimes 
carry  on  his  share  in  it  as  long  as  the  teacher's 
breath  would,  last  out.  For  Mordecai  threw  into 
each  repetition  the  fervor  befitting  a  sacred  occa- 
sion. In  such  instances,  Jacob  would  show  no 
other  distraction  than  reaching  out  and  surveying 
the  contents  of  his  pockets;  or  drawing  down 
the  skin  of  his  cheeks  to  make  his  eyes  look  aw- 
ful, and  rolling  his  head  to  complete  the  effect ; 
or  alternately  handling  his  own  nose  and  Morde- 
cai's as  if  to  test  the  relation  of  their  masses. 
Under  all  this  the  fervid  reciter  would  not  pause, 
satisfied  if  the  young  organs  of  speech  would  sub- 
mit themselves.  But  most  commonly  a  sudden 
impulse  sent  Jacob  leaping  away  into  some  antic 
or  active  amusement,  when,  instead  of  following 
the  recitation,  he  would  return  upon  the  forego- 
ing words  most  ready  to  his  tongue,  and  mouth 
or  gabble,  with  a  seesaw  suited  to  the  action  of 
his  limbs,  a  verse  on  which  Mordecai  had  spent 
some  of  his  too  scanty  heart's  blood.  Yet  he 
waited  with  such  patience  as  a  prophet  needs, 
and  began  his  strange  printing  again  undiscour- 
aged  on  the  morrow,  saying  inwardly, 

"My  words  may  rule  him  some  day.  Their 
meaning  may  flash  out  on  him.  It  is  so  with  a 
nation — after  many  days." 

Meanwhile  Jacob's  sense  of  power  was  increased 


and  his  time  enlivened  by  a  store  of  magical  ar- 
ticulation with  which  he  made  the  baby  crow,  or 
drove  the  large  cat  into  a  dark  corner,  or  prom- 
ised himself  to  frighten  any  incidental  Christian 
of  his  own  years.  One  week  he  had  unfortunate- 
ly seen  a  street  mountebank,  and  this  carried  off 
his  muscular  imitativcness  in  sad  divergence  from 
New  Hebrew  poetry  after  the  model  of  Jehuda 
ha-Levi.  Mordecai  had  arrived  at  a  fresh  pas- 
sage in  his  poem  ;  for  as  soon  as  Jacob  had  got 
well  used  to  one  portion,  he  was  led  on  to  anoth- 
er, and  a  fresh  combination  of  sounds  generally 
answered  better  in  keeping  him  fast  for  a  few  min- 
utes. The  consumptive  voice,  originally  a  strong 
high  barytone,  with  its  variously  mingling  hoarse- 
ness, like  a  haze  amidst  illuminations,  and  its  oc- 
casional incipient  gasp,  had  more  than  the  usual 
excitement,  while  it  gave  forth  Hebrew  verses 
with  a  meaning  something  like  this  : 

"  Away  from  me  the  garment  of  forgetfulness. 
Withering  the  heart; 

The  oil  and  wine  from  presses  of  the  Goyim, 
Poisoned  with  scorn. 
Solitude  is  on  the  sides  of  Mount  Nebo, 
In  its  heart  a  tomb: 

There  the  buried  ark  and  golden  cherubim 
Make  hidden  light: 

There  the  solemn  faces  gaze  unchanged, 
The  wings  are  spread  unbroken : 
Shut  beneath  in  silent  awful  speech 
The  Law  lies  graven. 
Solitude  and  darkness  are  my  covering, 
And  my  heart  a  tomb ; 
Smite  and  shatter  it,  O  Gabriel ! 
Shatter  it  as  the  clay  of  the  founder 
Around  the  golden  linage." 

In  the  absorbing  enthusiasm  with  which  Mor- 
decai had  intoned  rather  than  spoken  this  last 
invocation,  he  was  unconscious  that  Jacob  had 
ceased  to  follow  him  and  had  started  away  from 
his  knees ;  but  pausing  he  saw,  as  by  a  sudden 
flash,  that  the  lad  had  thrown  himself  on  his 
hands  with  his  feet  in  the  air,  mountebank  fash- 
ion, and  was  picking  up  with  his  lips  a  bright 
farthing  which  was  a  favorite  among  his  pocket 
treasures.  This  might  have  been  reckoned  among 
the  tricks  Mordecai  was  used  to,  but  at  this  mo- 
ment it  jarred  him  horribly,  as  if  it  had  been  a 
Satanic  grin  upon  his  prayer. 

"  Child !  child !"  he  called  out  with  a  strange 
cry  that  startled  Jacob  to  his  feet,  and  then  he 
sank  backward  with  a  shudder,  closing  his  eyes. 

"  What  ?"  said  Jacob,  quickly.  Then,  not  get- 
ting an  immediate  answer,  he  pressed  Mordecai's 
knees  with  a  shaking  movement,  in  order  to  rouse 
him.  Mordecai  opened  his  eyes  with  a  fierce  ex- 
pression in  them,  leaned  forward,  grasped  the  lit- 
tle shoulders,  and  said,  in  a  quick,  hoarse  whisper, 

"  A  curse  is  on  your  generation,  child.  They 
will  open  the  mountain  and  drag  forth  the  golden 
wings  and  coin  them  into  money,  and  the  solemn 
faces  they  will  break  up  into  ear-rings  for  wanton 
women !  And  they  shall  get  themselves  a  new 
name,  but  the  angel  of  ignominy,  with  the  fiery 
brand,  shall  know  them,  and  their  heart  shall  be 
the  tomb  of  dead  desires  that  turn  their  life  to 
rottenness." 

The  aspect  and  action  of  Mordecai  were  so 
new  and  mysterious  to  Jacob — they  carried  such 
a  burden  of  obscure  threat — it  was  as  if  the 
patient,  indulgent  companion  had  turned  into 
something  unknown  and  terrific :  the  sunken 
dark  eyes  and  hoarse  accents  close  to  him,  the 
thin  grappling  fingers,  shook  Jacob's  little  frame 
into  awe,  and  while  Mordecai  was  speaking  he 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAL 


163 


stood  trembling  with  a  sense  that  the  house  was 
tumbling  in  and  they  were  not  going  to  have 
dinner  any  more.  But  when  the  terrible  speech 
had  ended  and  the  pinch  was  relaxed,  the  shock 
resolved  itself  into  tears ;  Jacob  lifted  up  his  small 
patriarchal  countenance  and  wept  aloud.  This 
sign  of  childish  grief  at  once  recalled  Mordecai  to 
his  usual  gentle  self:  he  was  not  able  to  speak 
again  at  present,  but  with  a  maternal  action  he 
drew  the  curly  head  toward  him  and  pressed  it 
tenderly  against  his  breast.  On  this  Jacob,  feel- 
ing the  danger  well-nigh  over,  howled  at  ease,  be- 
ginning to  imitate  his  own  performance  and  im- 
prove upon  it — a  sort  of  transition  from  impulse 
into  art  often  observable.  Indeed,  the  next  day 
he  undertook  to  terrify  Adelaide  Rebekah  in  like 
manner,  and  succeeded  very  well. 

But  Mordecai  suffered  a  check  which  lasted 
long,  from  the  consciousness  of  a  misapplied  agi- 
tation ;  sane  as  well  as  excitable,  he  judged  se- 
verely his  moments  of  aberration  into  futile  eager- 
ness, and  felt  discredited  with  himself.  All  the 
more  his  mind  was  strained  toward  the  discern- 
ment of  that  friend  to  come,  with  whom  he  would 
have  a  calm  certainty  of  fellowship  and  under- 
standing. 

It  was  just  then  that,  in  his  usual  mid-day 
guardianship  of  the  old  book-shop,  he  was  struck 
by  the  appearance  of  Deronda,  and  it  is  perhaps 
comprehensible  now  why  Mordecai's  glance  took 
on  a  sudden  eager  interest  as  he  looked  at  the 
new-comer :  he  saw  a  face  and  frame  which  seem- 
ed to  him  to  realize  the  long-conceived  type.  But 
the  disclaimer  of  Jewish  birth  was  for  the  moment 
a  backward  thrust  of  double  severity,  the  partic- 
ular disappointment  tending  to  shake  his  con- 
fidence in  the  more  indefinite  expectation.  Nev- 
ertheless, when  he  found  Deronda  seated  at  the 
Cohens'  table,  the  disclaimer  was  for  the  moment 
nullified :  the  first  impression  returned  with  added 
force,  seeming  to  be  guaranteed  by  this  second 
meeting  under  circumstances  more  peculiar  than 
the  former ;  and  in  asking  Deronda  if  he  knew 
Hebrew,  Mordecai  was  so  possessed  by  the  new  in- 
rush of  belief  that  he  had  forgotten  the  absence  of 
any  other  condition  to  the  fulfillment  of  his  hopes. 
But  the  answering  "  No"  struck  them  all  down 
again,  and  the  frustration  was  more  painful  than 
before.  After  turning  his  back  on  the  visitor  that 
Sabbath  evening,  Mordecai  went  through  days  of 
a  deep  discouragement,  like  that  of  men  on  a 
doomed  ship  who,  having  strained  their  eyes  aft- 
er a  sail,  and  beheld  it  with  rejoicing,  behold  it 
never  advance,  and  say,  "  Our  sick  eyes  make  it." 
But  the  long-contemplated  figure  had  come  as 
an  emotional  sequence  of  Mordecai's  firmest  the- 
oretic convictions ;  it  had  been  wrought  from  the 
imagery  of  his  most  passionate  life ;  and  it  inev- 
itably re-appeared — re-appeared  in  a  more  specif- 
ic self-asserting  form  than  ever.  Deronda  had 
that  sort  of  resemblance  to  the  preconceived  type 
which  a  finely  individual  bust  or  portrait  has  to 
the  more  generalized  copy  left  in  our  minds  after 
a  long  interval :  we  renew  our  memory  with  de- 
light, but  we  hardly  know  with  how  much  correc- 
tion. And  now  his  face  met  Mordecai's  inward 
gaze  as  if  it  had  always  belonged  to  the  awaited 
friend,  raying  out,  moreover,  some  of  that  influ- 
ence which  belongs  to  breathing  flesh;  till  by- 
and-by  it  seemed  that  discouragement  had  turned 
into  a  new  obstinacy  of  resistance,  and  the  ever- 
recurrent  vision  had  the  force  of  an  outward  call 


to  disregard  counter-evidence,  and  keep  expecta- 
tion awake.  It  was  Deronda  now  who  was  seen 
in  the  often  painful  night-watches,  when  we  are 
all  liable  to  be  held  with  the  clutch  of  a  single 
thought — whose  figure,  never  with  its  back  turn- 
ed, was  seen  in  moments  of  soothed  reverie  or 
soothed  dozing,  painted  on  that  golden  sky  which 
was  the  doubly  blessed  symbol  of  advancing  day 
and  of  approaching  rest. 

Mordecai  knew  that  the  nameless  stranger  was 
to  come  and  redeem  his  ring;  and,  in  spite  of 
contrary  chances,  the  wish  to  see  him  again  was 
growing  into  a  belief  that  he  should  see  him.  In 
the  January  weeks  he  felt  an  increasing  agita- 
tion of  that  subdued  hidden  quality  which  hin- 
ders nervous  people  from  any  steady  occupation 
on  the  eve  of  an  anticipated  change.  He  could 
not  go  on  with  his  printing  of  Hebrew  on  little 
Jacob's  mind,  or  with  his  attendance  at  a  week- 
ly club,  which  was  another  effort  of  the  same  for- 
lorn hope :  something  else  was  coming.  The  one 
thing  he  longed  for  was  to  get  as  far  as  the  river, 
which  he  could  do  but  seldom  and  with  difficulty. 
He  yearned  with  a  poet's  yearning  for  the  wide 
sky,  the  far-reaching  vista  of  bridges,  the  tender 
and  fluctuating  lights  on  the  water,  which  seems 
to  breathe  with  a  life  that  can  shiver  and  mourn, 
be  comforted  and  rejoice. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

"Vor  den  Wissenden  eich  stellen 
Sicher  Set's  in  alien  Fallen ! 
Wenn  du  lange  dich  gequalet 
Weiss  er  gleich  wo  dir  es  fehlet; 
Auch  auf  Beifall  darfet  du  hoffen, 
Denn  er  weiss  wo  du's  getroffen." 

— GOETHE  :  We«tostlicher  Divan. 

MoMENiors  things  happened  to  Deronda  the 
very  evening  of  that  visit  to  the  small  house  at 
Chelsea,  when  there  was  the  discussion  about  Mi- 
rah's  public  name.  But,  for  the  family  group 
there,  what  appeared  to  be  the  chief  sequence 
connected  with  it  occurred  two  days  afterward. 
About  four  o'clock  wheels  paused  before  the  door, 
and  there  came  one  of  those  knocks  with  an  ac- 
companying ring  which  serve  to  magnify  the  sense 
of  social  existence  in  a  region  where  the  most  en- 
livening signals  are  usually  those  of  the  muffin 
man.  All  the  girls  were  at  home,  and  the  tw» 
rooms  were  thrown  together  to  make  space  for 
Kate's  drawing,  as  well  as  a  great  length  of  em- 
broidery which  had  taken  the  place  of  the  satin 
cushions — a  sort  of  piece  de  resistance'm  the  courses 
of  needle- work,  taken  up  by  any  clever  fingers  that 
happened  to  be  at  liberty.  It  stretched  across  the 
front-room  picturesquely  enough,  Mrs.  Meyrick 
bending  over  it  at  one  corner,  Mab  in  the  middle, 
and  Amy  at  the  other  end.  Mirah,  whose  per- 
formances in  point  of  sewing  were  on  the  make- 
shift level  of  the  tailor-bird's,  her  education  in 
that  branch  having  been  much  neglected,  was 
acting  as  reader  to  the  party,  seated  on  a  camp- 
stool  ;  in  which  position  she  also  served  Kate  as 
model  for  a  title-page  vignette,  symbolizing  a  fair 
public  absorbed  in  the  successive  volumes  of  the 
Family  Tea-table.  She  was  giving  forth  with 
charming  distinctness  the  delightful  Essay  of 
Elia,  "  The  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweeps,"  and  all 
were  smiling  over  the  "  innocent  blacknesses," 
when  the  imposing  knock  and  ring  called  their 


164 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


thoughts  to  loftier  spheres,  and  they  looked  up 
in  wonderment. 

"Dear  me!"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick;  "can  it  be 
Lady  Mallinger?  Is  there  a  grand  carriage, 
Amy?" 

"  No — only  a  hansom  cab.  It  must  be  a  gen- 
tleman." 

"The  Prime  Minister,  I  should  think,"  said 
Kate,  dryly.  "  Hans  says  the  greatest  man  in  Lon- 
don may  get  into  a  hansom  cab." 

"  Oh,  oh,  oh !"  cried  Mab.  "  Suppose  it  should 
be  Lord  Russell !" 

The  five  bright  faces  were  all  looking  amused, 
when  the  old  maid-servant,  bringing  in  a  card, 
distractedly  left  the  parlor  door  open,  and  there 
was  seen  bowing  toward  Mrs.  Meyrick  a  figure 
quite  unlike  that  of  the  respected  Premier — tall 
and  physically  impressive  even  in  his  kid  and 
kerseymere,  with  massive  face,  flamboyant  hair, 
and  gold  spectacles ;  in  fact,  as  Mrs.  Meyrick  saw 
from  the  card,  Julius  Klesmer. 

Even  embarrassment  could  hardly  have  made 
the  "little  mother"  awkward,  but,  quick  in  her 
perceptions,  she  was  at  once  aware  of  the  situa- 
tion, and  felt  well  satisfied  that  the  great  person- 
age had  come  to  Mirah  instead  of  requiring  her 
to  come  to  him,  taking  it  as  a  sign  of  active  in- 
terest. But  when  he  entered,  the  rooms  shrank 
into  closets,  the  cottage  piano,  Mab  thought,  seem- 
ed a  ridiculous  toy,  and  the  entire  family  exist- 
ence as  petty  and  private  as  an  establishment  of 
mice  in  the  Tuileries.  Klesmer's  personality,  es- 
pecially his  way  of  glancing  round  him,  immedi- 
ately suggested  vast  areas  and  a  multitudinous 
audience,  and  probably  they  made  the  usual  scen- 
ery of  his  consciousness,  for  we  all  of  us  carry 
on  our  thinking  in  some  habitual  locus  where 
there  is  a  presence  of  other  souls,  and  those  who 
take  in  a  larger  sweep  than  their  neighbors  are 
apt  to  seem  mightily  vain  and  affected.  Klesmer 
was  vain,  but  not  more  so  than  many  contempo- 
raries of  heavy  aspect,  whose  vanity  leaps  out 
and  startles  one  like  a  spear  out  of  a  walking- 
stick  ;  as  to  his  carriage  and  gestures,  these  were 
as  natural  to  him  as  the  length  of  his  fingers ; 
and  the  rankest  affectation  he  could  have  shown 
would  have  been  to  look  diffident  and  demure. 
While  his  grandiose  air  was  making  Mab  feel 
herself  a  ridiculous  toy  to  match  the  cottage  pi- 
ano, he  was  taking  in  the  details  around  him  with 
»  keen  and  thoroughly  kind  sensibility.  He  re- 
membered a  home  no  larger  than  this  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Bohemia ;  and  in  the  figurative  Bohe- 
mia too  he  had  had  large  acquaintance  with  the 
variety  and  romance  which  belong  to  small  in- 
comes. He  addressed  Mrs.  Meyrick  with  the  ut- 
most deference. 

"  I  hope  I  have  not  taken  too  great  a  freedom. 
Being  in  the  neighborhood,  I  ventured  to  save 
time  by  calling.  Our  friend  Mr.  Deronda  men- 
tioned to  me  an  understanding  that  I  was  to  have 
the  honor  of  becoming  acquainted  with  a  young 
lady  here— Miss  Lapidoth." 

Klesmer  had  really  discerned  Mirah  in  the 
first  moment  of  entering,  but  with  subtle  polite- 
ness he  looked  round  bowingly  at  the  three  sis- 
ters as  if  he  were  uncertain  which  was  the  young 
lady  in  question. 

"  Those  are  my  daughters :  this  is  Miss  Lapi- 
doth," said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  waving  her  hand  to- 
ward Mirah. 

"Ah,"  said  Klesmer,  In  a  tone  of  gratified  ex- 


pectation, turning  a  radiant  smile  and  deep  bow- 
to  Mirah,  who,  instead  of  being  in  the  least  taken 
by  surprise,  had  a  calm  pleasure  in  her  face. 
She  liked  the  look  of  Klesmer,  feeling  sure  that 
he  would  scold  her,  like  a  great  musician  and  a 
kind  man. 

"You  will  not  object  to  beginning  our  ac- 
quaintance by  singing  to  me,"  he  added,  aware 
that  they  would  all  be  relieved  by  getting  rid  of 
preliminaries. 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad.  It  is  good  of  you  to  be 
willing  to  listen  to  me,"  said  Mirah,  moving  to 
the  piano.  "  Shall  I  accompany  myself  ?" 

"  By  all  means,"  said  Klesmer,  seating  himself, 
at  Mrs.  Meyrick's  invitation,  where  he  could  have 
a  good  view  of  the  singer.  The  acute  little  moth- 
er would  not  have  acknowledged  the  weakness, 
but  she  really  said  to  herself, "  He  will  like  her 
singing  better  if  he  sees  her." 

All  the  feminine  hearts  except  Mirah's  were 
beating  fast  with  anxiety,  thinking  Klesmer  ter- 
rific as  he  sat  with  his  listening  frown  on,  and 
only  daring  to  look  at  him  furtively.  If  he  did 
say  any  thing  severe,  it  would  be  so  hard  for 
them  all.  They  could  only  comfort  themselves 
with  thinking  that  Prince  Camaralzaman,  who 
had  heard  the  finest  things,  preferred  Mirah's 
singing  to  any  other:  also  she  appeared  to  be 
doing  her  very  best,  as  if  she  were  more  instead 
of  less  at  ease  than  usual. 

The  song  she  had  chosen  was  a  fine  setting  of 
some  words  selected  from  Leopardi's  grand  Ode 
to  Italy : 

"  O  patria  mia,  vedo  le  mura  e  gli  archi 
E  le  colonne  e  i  aimulacri  e  I'erme 
Torri  degli  avi  nostri" — 

This  was  recitative :  then  followed, 
"Ma  la  gloria  non  vedo"— 

a  mournful  melody,  a  rhythmic  plaint.  After 
this  came  a  climax  of  devout  triumph — passing 
from  the  subdued  adoration  of  a  happy  Andante 
in  the  words, 

"  Beatissimi  voi, 

Che  offriste  il  -petto  alle  nemiche  lance 
Per  amor  di  costei  che  al  sol  vi  diede," 

to  the  joyous  outburst  of  an  exultant  Allegro  in, 

"  Oh  viva,  oh  viva : 
Beatissimi  voi 
ilentre  nel  mondo  sifavelli  o  scriva." 

When  she  had  ended,  Klesmer  said,  after  a 
moment, 

"  That  is  old  Leo's  music." 

"  Yes,  he  was  my  last  master — at  Vienna :  so 
fierce  and  so  good,"  said  Mirah,  with  a  melan- 
choly smile.  "  He  prophesied  that  my  voice 
would  not  do  for  the  stage.  And  he  was  right." 

"  Continue,  if  you  please,"  said  Klesmer,  put- 
ting out  his  lips  and  shaking  his  long  fingers, 
while  he  went  on  with  a  smothered  articulation 
quite  unintelligible  to  the  audience. 

The  three  girls  detested  him  unanimously  for 
not  saying  one  word  of  praise.  Mrs.  Meyrick  was 
a  little  alarmed. 

Mirah,  simply  bont  on  doing  what  Klesmcr  de- 
sired, and  imagining  that  ho  would  now  like  to 
hear  her  sing  some  German,  wont  through  Prince 
RadzivuTs  music  to  Gretchen's  songs  in  the  Faust, 
one  after  the  other,  without  any  interrogatory 
pause.  When  she  had  finished,  ho  rose  and 
walked  to  the  extremity  of  the  small  space  at 
command,  then  walked  back  to  the  piano,  where 


BOOK  V.— MORDECA1. 


166 


Mirah  had  risen  from  her  seat  and  stood  looking 
toward  him,  with  her  little  hands  crossed  before 
her,  meekly  awaiting  judgment ;  then,  with  a  sud- 
den unknitting  of  his  brow  and  with  beaming  eyes, 
he  put  out  his  hand  and  said,  abruptly,  "  Let  us 
shake  hands :  you  are  a  musician." 

Mab  felt  herself  beginning  to  cry,  and  all  the 
three  girls  held  Klesmer  adorable.  Mrs.  Meyrick 
took  a  long  breath. 

But  straightway  the  frown  came  again,  the 
long  hand,  back  uppermost,  was  stretched  out  in 
quite  a  different  sense  to  touch  with  finger-tip 
the  back  of  Mirah's,  and,  with  protruded  lip,  he 
said: 

"Not  for  great  tasks.  No  high  roofs.  We 
are  no  sky-larks.  We  must  be  modest."  Kles- 
mer paused  here.  And  Mab  ceased  to  think  him 
adorable :  "  As  if  Mirah  had  shown  the  least  sign 
of  conceit !" 

Mirah  was  silent,  knowing  that  there  was  a 
specific  opinion  to  be  waited  for,  and  Klesmer 
presently  went  on : 

"  I  would  not  advise — I  would  not  further  your 
singing  in  any  larger  space  than  a  private  draw- 
ing-room. But  you  will  do  there.  And  here  in 
London  that  is  one  of  the  best  careers  open.  Les- 
sons will  follow.  Will  you  come  and  sing  at  a 
private  concert  at  my  house  on  Wednesday  ?" 

"  Oh,  I  shall  be  grateful,"  said  Mirah,  putting 
her  hands  together  devoutly.  "  I  would  rather 
get  my  bread  in  that  way  than  by  any  thing  more 
public.  I  will  try  to  improve.  What  should  I 
work  at  most  ?" 

Klesmer  made  a  preliminary  answer  in  noises 
which  sounded  like  words  bitten  in  two  and  swal- 
lowed before  they  were  half  out,  shaking  his  fin- 
gers the  while,  before  he  said,  quite  distinctly,  "  I 
shall  introduce  you  to  Astorga :  he  is  the  foster- 
father  of  good  singing,  and  will  give  you  advice." 
Then  addressing  Mrs.  Meyrick,  he  added,  "  Mrs. 
Klesmer  will  call  before  Wednesday,  with  your 
permission." 

"  We  shall  feel  that  to  be  a  great  kindness," 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick. 

"  You  will  sing  to  her,"  said  Klesmer,  turning 
again  to  Mirah.  "  She  is  a  thorough  musician,  and 
has  a  soul  with  more  ears  to  it  than  you  will  oft- 
en get  hi  a  musician.  Your  singing  will  satisfy 
her: 

'Vor  den  Wissenden  eich  stellen'— 

You  know  the  rest  ?" 

" '  Sicher  iet'e  in  alien  Fallen,' " 
said   Mirah,  promptly.     And  Klesmer,  saying, 
"  Schon !"  put  out  his  hand  again  as  a  good-by. 

He  had  certainly  chosen  the  most  delicate  way 
of  praising  Mirah,  and  the  Meyrick  girls  had  now 
given  him  all  their  esteem.  But  imagine  Mab's 
feeling  when,  suddenly  fixing  his  eyes  on  her,  he 
said,  decisively,  "  That  young  lady  is  musical,  I 
see !"  She  was  a  mere  blush  and  sense  of  scorch- 
ing. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mirah,  on  her  behalf.  "  And  she 
has  a  touch." 

"  Oh  please,  Mirah — a  scramble,  not  a  touch," 
gaid  Mab,  in  anguish,  with  a  horrible  fear  of  what 
the  next  thing  might  be  :  this  dreadfully  divining 
personage— evidently  Satan  in  gray  trowsers — 
might  order  her  to  sit  down  to  the  piano,  and  her 
heart  was  like  molten  wax  in  the  midst  of  her. 
But  this  was  cheap  payment  for  her  amazed  joy 
when  Klesmer  said,  benignantly,  turning  to  Mrs. 


Meyrick,  "  Will  she  like  to  accompany  Miss  Lapi- 
doth  and  hear  the  music  on  Wednesday  ?" 

"  There  could  hardly  be  a  greater  pleasure  for 
her,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  She  will  be  most  glad 
and  grateful." 

Thereupon  Klesmer  bowed  round  to  the  three 
sisters  more  grandly  than  they  had  ever  been 
bowed  to  before.  Altogether  it  was  an  amusing 
picture — the  little  room  with  so  much  of  its  diag- 
onal taken  up  in  Klesmer's  magnificent  bend  to 
the  small  feminine  figures  like  images  a  little  less 
than  life-size,  the  grave  Holbein  faces  on  the 
walls,  as  many  as  were  not  otherwise  occupied, 
looking  hard  at  this  stranger  who  by  his  face 
seemed  a  dignified  contemporary  of  their  own,  but 
whose  garments  seemed  a  deplorable  mockery  of 
the  human  form. 

Mrs.  Meyrick  could  not  help  going  out  of  the 
room  with  Klesmer  and  closing  the  door  behind 
her.  He  understood  her,  and  said,  with  a  frown- 
ing nod, 

"  She  will  do :  if  she  doesn't  attempt  too  much 
and  her  voice  holds  out,  she  can  make  an  income. 
I  know  that  is  the  great  point :  Deronda  told  me. 
You  are  taking  care  of  her.  She  looks  like  a 
good  girl." 

"She  is  an  angel,"  said  the  warm-hearted 
woman. 

"  No,"  said  Klesmer,  with  a  playful  nod ;  "  she 
is  a  pretty  Jewess :  the  angels  must  not  get  the 
credit  of  her.  But  I  think  she  has  found  a  guard- 
ian angel,"  he  ended,  bowing  himself  out  in  this 
amiable  way. 

The  four  young  creatures  had  looked  at  each 
other  mutely  till  the  door  banged  and  Mrs.  Mey- 
rick re-entered.  Then  there  was  an  explosion. 
Mab  clapped  her  hands  and  danced  every  where 
inconveniently ;  Mrs.  Meyrick  kissed  Mirah  and 
blessed  her ;  Amy  said,  emphatically,  "  We  can 
never  get  her  a  new  dress  before  Wednesday !" 
and  Kate  exclaimed, "  Thank  Heaven  my  table  is 
not  knocked  over !" 

Mirah  had  reseated  herself  on  the  music-stool 
without  speaking,  and  the  tears  were  rolling 
down  her  cheeks  as  she  looked  at  her  friends. 

"  Now,  now,  Mab !"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick ;  "  come 
and  sit  down  reasonably  and  let  us  talk." 

"  Yes,  let  us  talk,"  said  Mab,  cordially,  coming 
back  to  her  low  seat  and  caressing  her  knees. 
"  I  am  beginning  to  feel  large  again.  Hans  said 
he  was  coming  this  afternoon.  I  wish  he  had 
been  here — only  there  would  have  been  no  room 
for  him.  Mirah,  what  are  you  looking  sad  for  ?" 

"I  am  too  happy,"  said  Mirah.  "I  feel  so 
full  of  gratitude  to  you  all ;  and  he  wastso  very 
kind." 

"  Yes,  at  last,"  said  Mab,  sharply.  "  But  he 
might  have  said  something  encouraging  sooner. 
I  thought  him  dreadfully  ugly  when  he  sat  frown- 
ing, and  only  said, '  Continue.'  I  hated  him  all 
the  long  way  from  the  top  of  his  hair  to  the  toe 
of  his  polished  boot." 

"  Nonsense,  Mab ;  he  has  a  splendid  profile," 
said  Kate. 

"  Now,  but  not  then.  I  can  not  bear  people  to 
keep  their  minds  bottled  up  for  the  sake  of  let- 
ting them  off  with  a  pop.  They  seem  to  grudge 
making  you  happy  unless  they  can  make  you 
miserable  beforehand.  However,  I  forgive  him 
every  thing,"  said  Mab,  with  a  magnanimous  air, 
"  because  he  has  invited  me.  I  wonder  why  he 
fixed  on  me  as  the  musical  one  ?  Was  it  because 


166 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


I  have  a  bulging  forehead,  ma,  and  peep  from  un- 
der it  like  a  newt  from  under  a  stone  ?" 

"  It  was  your  way  of  listening  to  the  singing, 
child,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  He  has  magic  spec- 
tacles, and  sees  every  thing  through  them,  depend 
upon  it.  But  what  was  that  German  quotation 
you  were  so  ready  with,  Mirah — you  learned 
puss  ?" 

"  Oh,  that  was  not  learning,"  said  Mirah,  her 
tearful  face  breaking  into  an  amused  smile.  "  I 
said  it  so  many  times  for  a  lesson.  It  means  that 
it  is  safer  to  do  any  thing— singing  or  any  thing 
else — before  those  who  know  and  understand  all 
about  it." 

"  That  was  why  you  were  not  one  bit  frighten- 
ed, I  suppose,"  said  Amy.  "  But  now,  what  we 
have  to  talk  about  is  a  dress  for  you  on  Wednes- 
day." 

"  I  don't  want  any  thing  better  than  this  black 
merino,"  said  Mirah,  rising  to  show  the  effect. 
"  Some  white  gloves  and  some  new  bottines."  She 
put  out  her  little  foot,  clad  in  the  famous  felt 
slipper. 

"  There  comes  Hans,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick. 
"  Stand  still,  and  let  us  hear  what  he  says  "about 
the  dress.  Artists  are  the  best  people  to  consult 
about  such  things." 

"  You  don't  consult  me,  ma,"  said  Kate,  lifting 
up  her  eyebrow  with  a  playful  complainingness. 
"  I  notice  mothers  are  like  the  people  I  deal  with 
— the  girls'  doings  are  always  priced  low." 

"  My  dear  child,  the  boys  are  such  a  trouble — 
we  could  never  put  up  with  them  if  we  didn't 
make  believe  they  were  worth  more,"  said  Mrs. 
Meyrick,  just  as  her  boy  entered.  "  Hans,  we 
want  your  opinion  about  Mirah's  dress.  A  great 
event  has  happened.  Klesmer  has  been  here, 
and  she  is  going  to  sing  at  his  house  on  Wednes- 
day among  grand  people.  She  thinks  this  dress 
will  do." 

"  Let  me  see,"  said  Hans.  Mirah  in  her  child- 
like way  turned  toward  him  to  be  looked  at ;  and 
he,  going  to  a  little  further  distance,  knelt  with 
one  knee  on  a  hassock  to  survey  her. 

"  This  would  be  thought  a  very  good  stage  dress 
for  me,"  she  said,  pleadingly,  "  in  a  part  where  I 
was  to  come  on  as  a  poor  Jewess  and  sing  to 
fashionable  Christians." 

"  It  would  be  effective,"  said  Hans,  with  a  con- 
sidering air ;  "  it  would  stand  out  well  among  the 
fashionable  chiffons." 

"  But  you  ought  not  to  claim  all  the  poverty 
on  your  side,  Mirah,"  said  Amy.  "There  are 
plenty  of  poor  Christians  and  dreadfully  rich 
Jews  a^i  fashionable  Jewesses." 

"  I  didn't  mean  any  harm,"  said  Mirah.  "  Only 
I  have  been  used  to  thinking  about  my  dress  for 
parts  in  plays.  And  I  almost  always  had  a  part 
with  a  plain  dress." 

"  That  makes  me  think  it  questionable,"  said 
Hans,  who  had  suddenly  become  as  fastidious  and 
conventional  on  this  occasion  as  he  had  thought 
Deronda  was,  apropos  of  the  Berenice  pictures. 
"  It  looks  a  little  too  theatrical.  We  must  not 
make  you  a  role  of  the  poor  Jewess — or  of  being 
a  Jewess  at  all."  Hans  had  a  secret  desire  to 
neutralize  the  Jewess  in  private  life,  which  he 
was  in  danger  of  not  keeping  secret. 

"  But  it  is  what  I  am  really.  I  am  not  pre- 
tending any  thing.  I  shall  never  be  any  thing 
else,"  said  Mirah.  "  I  always  feel  myself  a  Jew- 


"  But  we  can't  feel  that  about  you,"  said  Hans, 
with  a  devout  look.  "What  does  it  signify 
whether  a  perfect  woman  is  a  Jewess  or  not  ?"  " 

"That  is  your  kind  way  of  praising  me;  I 
never  was  praised  so  before,"  said  Mirah,  with  a 
smile,  which  was  rather  maddening  to  Hans,  and 
made  him  feel  still  more  of  a  cosmopolitan. 

"  People  don't  think  of  me  as  a  British  Chris- 
tian," he  said,  his  face  creasing  merrily.  "  They 
think  of  me  as  an  imperfectly  handsome  young 
man  and  an  unpromising  painter." 

"  But  you  are  wandering  from  the  dress,"  said 
Amy.  "  If  that  will  not  do,  how  are  we  to  get 
another  before  Wednesday  ?  and  to-morrow  Sun- 
day ?" 

"  Indeed  this  will  do,"  said  Mirah,  entreatingly. 
"It  is  all  real,  you  know" — here  she  looked  at 
Hans — "  even  if  it  seemed  theatrical.  Poor  Ber- 
enice sitting  on  the  ruins — any  one  might  say 
that  was  theatrical,  but  I  know  that  is  just  what 
she  would  do." 

"  I  am  a  scoundrel,"  said  Hans,  overcome  by 
this  misplaced  trust.  "That  is  my  invention. 
Nobody  knows  that  she  did  that.  Shall  you  for- 
give me  for  not  saying  so  before  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Mirah,  after  a  momentary  pause 
of  surprise.  "  You  knew  it  was  what  she  would 
be  sure  to  do — a  Jewess  who  had  not  been  faith- 
ful— who  had  done  what  she  did  and  was  peni- 
tent. She  could  have  no  joy  but  to  afflict  herself ; 
and  where  else  would  she  go  ?  I  think  it  is  very 
beautiful  that  you  should  enter  so  into  what  a 
Jewess  would  feel." 

"  The  Jewesses  of  that  time  sat  on  ruins,"  said 
Hans,  starting  up  with  a  sense  of  being  check- 
mated. "That  makes  them  convenient  for  pic- 
tures." 

"But  the  dress — the  dress,"  said  Amy;  "is  it 
settled  ?" 

"  Yes ;  is  it  not  ?"  said  Mirah,  looking  doubt- 
fully at  Mrs.  Meyrick,  who  in  her  turn  looked  up 
at  her  son,  and  said,  "  What  do  you  think,  Hans  ?" 

"  That  dress  will  not  do,"  said  Hans,  decisive- 
ly. "  She  is  not  going  to  sit  on  ruins.  You  must 
jump  into  a  cab  with  her,  little  mother,  and  go 
to  Regent  Street.  It's  plenty  of  time  to  get  any 
thing  you  like — a  black  silk  dress  such  as  ladies 
wear.  She  must  not  be  taken  for  an  object  of 
charity.  She  has  talents  to  make  people  indebt- 
ed to  her." 

"I  think  it  is  what  Mr.  Deronda  would  like— 
for  her  to  have  a  handsome  dress,"  said  Mrs. 
Meyrick,  deliberating. 

"  Of  course  it  is,"  said  Hans,  with  some  sharp- 
ness. "  You  may  take  my  word  for  what  a  gen- 
tleman would  feel." 

"I  wish  to  do  what  Mr.  Deronda  would  like 
me  to  do,"  said  Mirah,  gravely,  seeing  that  Mrs. 
Meyrick  looked  toward  her ;  and  Hans,  turning 
on  his  heel,  went  to  Kate's  table  and  took  up  one 
of  her  drawings  as  if  his  interest  needed  a  new 
direction. 

"  Shouldn't  you  like  to  make  a  study  of  Kles- 
mer's  head,  Hans  ?"  said  Kate.  "  I  suppose  you 
have  often  seen  him  ?" 

"Seen  him!"  exclaimed  Hans,  immediately 
throwing  back  his  head  and  mane,  seating  him- 
self at  the  piano,  and  looking  round  him  as  if  he 
were  surveying  an  amphitheatre,  while  he  held 
his  fingers  down  perpendicularly  toward  the  keys. 
But  then  in  another  instant  he  wheeled  round  on 
the  stool,  looked  at  Mirah,  and  said,  half  timidly, 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


167 


"  Perhaps  you  don't  like  this  mimicry ;  you  must 
always  stop  my  nonsense  when  you  don't  like  it." 

Mirah  had  been  smiling  at  the  swiftly  made 
image,  and  she  smiled  still,  but  with  a  touch  of 
something  else  than  amusement,  as  she  said: 
"Thank  you.  But  you  have  never  done  any 
thing  I  did  not  like.  I  hardly  think  he  could, 
belonging  to  you,"  she  added,  looking  at  Mrs. 
Meyriek. 

In  this  way  Hans  got  food  for  his  hope.  How 
could  the  rose  help  it  when  several  bees  in  suc- 
cession took  its  sweet  odor  as  a  sign  of  personal 
attachment  ? 


CHAPTER  XL. 

"Within  the  soul  a  faculty  abides, 
That  with  interpositions,  which  would  bide 
And  darken,  BO  can  deal,  that  they  become 
Contingencies  of  pomp;  and  serve  to  exalt 
Her  native  brightness,  as  the  ample  moon, 
In  the  deep  stillness  of  a  summer  even, 
Rising  behind  a  thick  and  lofty  grove, 


.ides 


Burns,  like  an  unconsuming  fire  of  light, 
In  the  green  trees;  and,  kindling  on  all  til 
Their  leafy  umbrage,  turns  the  dusky  veil 
Into  a  substance  glorious  as  her  own — 
Yea,  with  her  own  incorporated— by  power 
Capacious  and  serene." 

— WOBDSWOBTII  :  Excursion,  B.  IV. 

DEROXDA  came  out  of  the  narrow  house  at  Chel- 
sea in  a  frame  of  mind  that  made  him  long  for 
some  good  bodily  exercise  to  carry  off  what  he 
was  himself  inclined  to  call  the  fumes  of  his  tem- 
per. He  was  going  toward  the  city,  and  the  sight 
of  the  Chelsea  Stairs  with  the  waiting  boats  at 
once  determined  him  to  avoid  the  irritating  inac- 
tion of  being  driven  in  a  cab,  by  calling  a  wherry 
and  taking  an  oar.  t 

His  errand  was  to  go  to  Ram's  book-shop, 
where  he  had  yesterday  arrived  too  late  for  Mor- 
decai's  mid-day  watch,  and  had  been  told  that  he 
invariably  came  there  again  between  five  and  six. 
Some  further  acquaintance  with  this  remarkable 
inmate  of  the  Cohens  was  particularly  desired  by 
Deronda  as  a  preliminary  to  redeeming  his  ring : 
he  wished  that  their  conversation  should  not 
again  end  speedily  with  that  drop  of  Mordecai's 
interest  which  was  like  the  removal  of  a  draw- 
bridge, and  threatened  to  shut  out  any  easy  com- 
munication in  future.  As  he  got  warmed  with 
the  use  of  the  oar,  fixing  his  mind  on  the  errand 
before  him  and  the  ends  he  wanted  to  achieve  on 
Mirah's  account,  he  experienced,  as  was  wont 
with  him,  a  quick  change  of  mental  light,  shift- 
ing his  point  of  view  to  that  of  the  person  whom 
he  had  been  thinking  of  hitherto  chiefly  as  serv- 
iceable to  his  own  purposes,  and  was  inclined  to 
taunt  himself  with  being  not  much  better  than  an 
enlisting  sergeant,  who  never  troubles  himself 
with  the  drama  that  brings  him  the  needful  re- 
cruits. 

"I  suppose  if  I  got  from  this  man  the  infor- 
mation I  am  most  anxious  about,"  thought  De- 
ronda, "  I  should  be  contented  enough  if  he  felt 
no  disposition  to  tell  me  more  of  himself,  or  why 
he  seemed  to  have  some  expectation  from  me 
•which  was  disappointed.  The  sort  of  curiosity 
he  stirs  would  die  out ;  and  yet  it  might  be  that 
he  had  neared  and  parted  as  one  can  imagine 
two  ships  doing,  each  freighted  with  an  exile 
who  would  have  recognized  the  other  if  the  two 
could  have  looked  out  face  to  face.  Not  that 
there  is  any  likelihood  of  a  peculiar  tie  between 


me  and  this  poor  fellow,  whose  voyage,  I  fancy, 
must  soon  be  over.  But  I  wonder  whether  there 
is  much  of  that  momentous  mutual  missing  be- 
tween people  who  interchange  blank  looks,  or 
even  long  for  one  another's  absence  in  a  crowd- 
ed place.  However,  one  makes  one's  self  chances 
of  missing  by  going  on  the  recruiting  sergeant's 
plan." 

When  the  wherry  was  approaching  Blackf  riars 
Bridge,  where  Deronda  meant  to  land,  it  was  half 
past  four,  and  the  gray  day  was  dying  gloriously, 
its  western  clouds  all  broken  into  narrowing  pur- 
ple strata  before  a  wide-spreading  saffron  clear- 
ness, which  in  the  sky  had  a  monumental  calm, 
but  on  the  river,  with  its  changing  objects,  was 
reflected  as  a  luminous  movement,  the  alternate 
flash  of  ripples  or  currents,  the  sudden  glow  of 
the  brown  sail,  the  passage  of  laden  barges  from 
blackness  into  color,  making  an  active  response 
to  that  brooding  glory. 

Feeling  well  heated  by  this  time,  Deronda  gave 
up  the  oar,  and  drew  over  him  again  his  Inverness 
cape.  As  he  lifted  up  his  head  while  fastening 
the  topmost  button,  his  eyes  caught  a  well-remem- 
bered face  looking  toward  him  over  the  parapet 
of  the  bridge — brought  out  by  the  western  light 
into  startling  distinctness  and  brilliancy — an  illu- 
minated type  of  bodily  emaciation  and  spiritual 
eagerness.  It  was  the  face  of  Mordecai,  who  also, 
in  his  watch  toward  the  west,  had  caught  sight  of 
the  advancing  boat,  and  had  kept  it  fast  within 
his  gaze,  at  first  simply  because  it  was  advancing, 
then  with  a  recovery  of  impressions  that  made  him 
quiver  as  with  a  presentiment,  till  at  last  the  near- 
ing  figure  lifted  up  its  face  toward  him — the  face 
of  his  visions — and  then  immediately,  with  white 
uplifted  hand,  beckoned  again  and  again. 

For  Deronda,  anxious  that  Mordecai  should  rec- 
ognize and  await  him,  had  lost  no  time  before  sig- 
naling, and  the  answer  came  straightway.  Mor- 
decai lifted  his  cap  and  waved  it — feeling  in  that 
moment  that  his  inward  prophecy  was  fulfilled. 
Obstacles,  incongruities,  all  melted  into  the  sense 
of  completion  with  which  his  soul  was  flooded  by 
this  outward  satisfaction  of  his  longing.  His  ex- 
ultation was  not  widely  different  from  that  of  the 
experimenter  bending  over  the  first  stirrings  of 
change  that  correspond  to  what  in  the  fervor  of 
concentrated  prevision  his  thought  has  foreshad- 
owed. The  prefigured  friend  had  come  from  the 
golden  background,  and  had  signaled  to  him  :  this 
actually  was :  the  rest  was  to  be. 

In  three  minutes  Deronda  had  landed,  had  paid 
his  boatman,  and  was  joining  Mordecai,  whose 
instinct  it  was  to  stand  perfectly  still  arid  wait 
for  him. 

"  I  was  very  glad  to  see  you  standing  here," 
said  Deronda,  "  for  I  was  intending  to  go  on  to 
the  book-shop  and  look  for  you  again.  I  was 
there  yesterday — perhaps  they  mentioned  it  to 
you  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Mordecai ;  "  that  was  the  reason 
I  came  to  the  bridge." 

This  answer,  made  with  simple  gravity,  was 
startlingly  mysterious  to  Deronda.  Were  the 
peculiarities  of  this  man  really  associated  with 
any  sort  of  mental  alienation,  according  to  Co- 
hen's hint  ? 

"  You  knew  nothing  of  my  being  at  Chelsea  ?" 
he  said,  after  a  moment. 

"  No ;  but  I  expected  you  to  come  down  the 
river.  I  have  been  waiting  for  you  these  five 


168 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


years."  Mordecai's  deep-sunk  eyes  were  fixed  on 
those  of  the  friend  who  had  at  last  arrived,  with 
a  look  of  affectionate  dependence,  at  once  pa- 
thetic and  solemn.  Deronda's  sensitiveness  was 
not  the  less  responsive  because  he  could  not  but 
believe  that  this  strangely  disclosed  relation  was 
founded  on  an  illusion. 

"  It  will  be  a  satisfaction  to  me  if  I  can  be  of 
any.  real  use  to  you,"  he  answered,  very  earnestly. 
"  Shall  we  get  into  a  cab  and  drive  to — wherever 
you  wish  to  go  ?  You  have  probably  had  walk- 
ing enough  with  your  short  breath." 

"  Let  us  go  to  the  book-shop.  It  will  soon  be 
time  for  me  to  be  there.  But  now  look  up  the 
river,"  said  Mordecai,  turning  again  toward  it  and 
speaking  in  under-tones  of  what  may  be  called  an 
excited  calm — so  absorbed  by  a  sense  of  fulfill- 
ment that  he  was  conscious  of  no  barrier  to  a 
complete  understanding  between  him  and  Deron- 
da.  "See  the  sky,  how  it  is  slowly  fading.  I 
have  always  loved  this  bridge :  I  stood  on  it  when 
I  was  a  little  boy.  It  is  a  meeting-place  for  the 
spiritual  messengers.  It  is  true — what  the  Mas- 
ters said — that  each  order  of  things  has  its  an- 
gel :  that  means  the  full  message  of  each  from 
what  is  afar.  Here  I  have  listened  to  the  mes- 
sages of  earth  and  sky ;  when  I  was  stronger  I 
used  to  stay  and  .watch  for  the  stars  in  the  deep 
heavens.  But  this  time  just  about*  sunset  was 
always  what  I  loved  best.  It  has  sunk  into  me 
and  dwelt  with  me — fading,  slowly  fading :  it 
was  my  own  decline :  it  paused — it  waited,  till  at 
last  it  brought  me  my  new  life — my  new  self — 
who  will  live  when  this  breath  is  all  breathed 
out." 

Deronda  did  not  speak.  He  felt  himself 
strangely  wrought  upon.  The  first -prompted 
suspicion  that  Mordecai  might  be  liable  to  hallu- 
cinations of  thought — might  have  become  a  mono- 
maniac on  some  subject  which  had  given  too  se- 
vere a  strain  to  his  diseased  organism — gave  way 
to  a  more  submissive  expectancy.  His  nature 
was  too  large,  too  ready  to  conceive  regions  be- 
yond his  own  experience,  to  rest  at  once  in  the 
easy  explanation,  "madness,"  whenever  a  con- 
sciousness showed  some  fullness  and  conviction 
where  his  own  was  blank.  It  accorded  with  his 
habitual  disposition  that  he  should  meet  rather 
than  resist  any  claim  on  him  in  the  shape  of 
another's  need ;  and  this  claim  brought  with  it 
a  sense  of  solemnity  which  seemed  a  radiation 
from  Mordecai,  as  utterly  nullifying  his  outward 
poverty  and  lifting  him  into  authority  as  if  he 
had  been  that  preternatural  guide  seen  in  the 
universal  legend,  who  suddenly  drops  his  mean 
disguise  and  stands  a  manifest  Power.  That  im- 
pression was  the  more  sanctioned  by  a  sort  of 
resolved  quietude  which  the  persuasion  of  fulfill- 
ment had  produced  in  Mordecai's  manner.  After 
they  had  stood  a  moment  in  silence  he  said,  "  Let 
us  go  now;"  and  when  they  were  walking  he 
added,  "  We  will  get  down  at  the  end  of  the 
street  and  walk  to  the  shop.  You  can  look  at 
the  books,  and  Mr.  Ram  will  be  going  away  di- 
rectly and  leave  us  alone." 

It  seemed  that  this  enthusiast  was  just  as  cau- 
tious, just  as  much  alive  to  judgments  in  other 
minds,  as  if  he  had  been  that  antipole  of  all 
enthusiasm  called  "  a  man  of  the  world." 

While  they  were  rattling  along  in  the  cab,  Mi- 
rah  was  still  present  with  Deronda  in  the  midst 
of  this  strange  experience,  but  he  foresaw  that 


the  course  of  conversation  would  be  determined 
by  Mordecai,  not  by  himself :  he  was  no  longer 
confident  what  questions  he  should  be  able  to 
ask ;  and  with  a  reaction  on  his  own  mood,  he 
inwardly  said,  "  I  suppose  I  am  in  a  state  of  com- 
plete superstition,  just  as  if  I  were  awaiting  the 
destiny  that  could  interpret  the  oracle.  But  some 
strong  relation  there  must  be  between  me  and 
this  man,  since  he  feels  it  strongly.  Great  Heav- 
en !  what  relation  has  proved  itself  more  potent 
in  the  world  than  faith  even  when  mistaken — 
than  expectation  even  when  perpetually  disap- 
pointed ?  Is  my  side  of  the  relation  to  be  disap- 
pointing or  fulfilling  ?— weU,  if  it  is  ever  possible 
for  me  to  fulfill,  I  will  not  disappoint." 

In  ten  minutes  the  two  men,  with  as  intense  a 
consciousness  as  if  they  had  been  two  undeclared 
lovers,  felt  themselves  alone  in  the  small  gas-lit 
book-shop,  and  turned  face  to  face,  each  baring  his 
head  from  an  instinctive  feeling  that  they  wished 
to  see  each  other  fully.  Mordecai  came  forward 
to  lean  his  back  against  the  little  counter,  while 
Deronda  stood  against  the  opposite  wall  hardly 
more  than  four  feet  off.  I  wish  I  could  perpetu- 
ate those  two  faces,  as  Titian's  "  Tribute  Money" 
has  perpetuated  two  types  presenting  another  sort 
of  contrast.  Imagine — we  all  of  us  can — the 
pathetic  stamp  of  consumption  with  its  brilliancy 
of  glance,  to  which  the  sharply  defined  structure 
of  features,  reminding  one  of  a  forsaken  temple, 
gives  already  a  far-off  look  as  of  one  getting  un- 
willingly out  of  reach ;  and  imagine  it  on  a  Jew- 
ish  face  naturally  accentuated  for  the  expression 
of  an  eager  mind — the  face  of  a  man  little  above 
thirty,  but  with  that  age  upon  it  which  belongs 
to  time  lengthened  by  suffering,  the  hair  and 
beard  still  black  throwing  out  the  yellow  pallor 
of  the  skin,  the  difficult  breathing  giving  more 
decided  marking  to  the  mobile  nostril,  the  wasted 
yellow  hands  conspicuous  on  the  folded  arms: 
then  give  to  the  yearning  consumptive  glance 
something  of  the  slowly  dying. mother's  look  when 
her  one  loved  son  visits  her  bedside,  and  the  flick- 
ering power  of  gladness  leaps  out  as  she  says, 
"  My  boy  !" — for  the  sense  of  spiritual  perpetu- 
ation in  another  resembles  that  maternal  trans- 
ference of  self. 

Seeing  such  a  portrait  you  would  see  Mordecai. 
And  opposite  to  him  was  a  face  not  more  dis- 
tinctively Oriental  than  many  a  type  seen  among 
what  we  call  the  Latin  races:  rich  in  youthful 
health,  and  with  a  forcible  masculine  gravity  in 
its  repose  that  gave  the  value  of  judgment  to  the 
reverence  with  which  he  met  the  gaze  of  this 
mysterious  son  of  poverty  who  claimed  him  as  a 
long-expected  friend.  The  more  exquisite  qual- 
ity  of  Deronda's  nature — that  keenly  perceptive 
sympathetic  emotiveness  which  ran  along  with 
his  speculative  tendency — was  never  more  thor- 

±ly  tested.  He  felt  nothing  that  could  be 
d  belief  in  the  validity  of  Mordecai's  impres- 
sions concerning  him  or  in  the  probability,  of  any 
greatly  effective  issue :  what  he  felt  was  a  pro- 
found sensibility  to  a  cry  from  the  depths  of  an- 
other soul ;  and  accompanying  that,  the  summons 
to  be  receptive  instead  of  superciliously  prejudg- 
ing. Receptiveness  is  a  rare  and  massive  power, 
ike  fortitude ;  and  this  state  of  mind  now  gave 
Deronda's  face  its  utmost  expression  of  calm  be- 
nignant force — an  expression  which  nourished 
Mordecai's  confidence  and  made  an  open  way  be- 
fore him.  He  began  to  speak. 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


169 


"  You  can  not  know  what  has  guided  me  to  you 
and  brought  us  together  at  this  moment.  You 
are  wondering." 

"  I  am  not  impatient,"  said  Deronda.  "  I  am 
ready  to  listen  to  whatever  you  may  wish  to  dis- 
close." 

"  You  see  some  of  the  reasons  why  I  needed 
you,"  said  Mordecai,  speaking  quietly,  as  if  he 
wished  to  reserve  his  strength.  "  You  see  that  I 
am  dying.  You  see  that  I  am  as  one  shut  up  be- 
hind bars  by  the  way-side,  who  if  he  spoke  to  any 
would  be  met  only  by  head-shaking  and  pity. 
The  day  is  closing — the  light  is  fading — soon  we 
should  not  have  been  able  to  discern  each  other. 
But  you  have  come  in  time." 

"  I  rejoice  that  I  am  come  in  time,"  said  De- 
ronda, feelingly.  lie  would  not  say,  "  I  hope  you 
are  not  mistaken  in  me" — the  very  word  "mis- 
taken," he  thought,  would  be  a  cruelty  at  that 
moment. 

"  But  the  hidden  reasons  why  I  need  you  be- 
gan afar  off,"  said  Mordecai ;  "  began  in  my  early 
years  when  I  was  studying  in  another  land.  Then 
ideas,  beloved  ideas,  came  to  me,  because  I  was  a 
Jew.  They  were  a  trust  to  fulfill,  because  I  was 
a  Jew.  They  were  an  inspiration,  because  I  was 
a  Jew,  and  felt  the  heart  of  my  race  beating  with- 
in me.  They  were  my  life ;  I  was  not  fully  born 
till  then.  I  counted  this  heart,  and  this  breath, 
and  this  right  hand" — Mordecai  had  pathetically 
pressed  his  hand  against  his  breast,  and  then 
stretched  its  wasted  fingers  out  before  him — "  I 
counted  my  sleep  and  my  waking,  and  the  work 
I  fed  my  body  with,  and  the  sights  that  fed  my 
eyes — I  counted  them  but  as  fuel  to  the  divine 
flame.  But  I  had  done  as  one  who  wanders  and 
engraves  his  thought  in  rocky  solitudes,  and  be- 
fore I  could  change  my  course  came  care  and  la- 
bor and  disease,  and  blocked  the  way  before  me, 
and-  bound  me  with  the  iron  that  eats  itself  into 
the  soul.  Then  I  said,  'How  shall  I  save  the 
life  within  me  from  being  stifled  with  this  stifled 
breath  ?' " 

Mordecai  paused  to  rest  that  poor  breath  which 
had  been  taxed  by  the  rising  excitement  of  his 
speech.  And  also  he  wished  to  check  that  ex- 
citement. Deronda  dared  not  speak:  the  very 
silence  in  the  narrow  space  seemed  alive  with 
mingled  awe  and  compassion  before  this  strug- 
gling fervor.  And  presently  Mordecai  went  on : 

"But  you  may  misunderstand  me.  I  speak 
not  as  an  ignorant  dreamer — as  one  bred  up  in 
the  inland  valleys,  thinking  ancient  thoughts 
anew  and  not  knowing  them  ancient,  never  hav- 
ing stood  by  the  great  waters  where  the  world's 
knowledge  passes  to  and  fro.  English  is  my 
mother-tongue,  England  is  the  native  land  of  this 
body,  which  is  but  as  a  breaking  pot  of  earth 
around  the  fruit-bearing  tree,  whose  seed  might 
make  the  desert  rejoice.  But  my  true  life  was 
nourished  in  Holland,  at  the  feet  of  my  mother's 
brother,  a  Rabbi  skilled  in  special  learning ;  and 
when  he  died  I  went  to  Hamburg  to  study,  and 
afterward  to  Gottingen,  that  I  might  take  a 
larger  outlook  on  my  people,  and  on  the  Gentile 
world,  and  drink  knowledge  at  all  sources.  I  was 
a  youth ;  I  felt  free ;  I  saw  our  chief  seats  in  Ger- 
many ;  I  was  not  then  in  utter  poverty.  And  I 
had  possessed  myself  of  a  handicraft.  For  I  said, 
I  care  not  if  my  lot  be  a*  that  of  Joshua  ben 
Chananja:  after  the  last  destruction  he  earned 
his  bread  by  making  needles,  but  in  his  youth  he 


had  been  a  singer  on  the  steps  of  the  Temple, 
and  had  a  memory  of  what  was,  before  the  glory 
departed.  I  said,  let  my  body  dwell  in  poverty, 
and  my  hands  be  as  the  hands  of  the  toiler ;  but 
let  my  soul  be  as  a  temple  of  remembrance  where 
the  treasures  of  knowledge  enter  and  the  inner 
sanctuary  is  hope.  I  knew  what  I  chose.  They 
said,  '  He  feeds  himself  on  visions,'  and  I  denied 
not ;  for  visions  are  the  creators  and  feeders  of  the 
world.  I  see,  I  measure  the  world  as  it  is,  which 
the  vision  will  create  anew.  You  are  not  listen- 
ing to  one  who  raves  aloof  from  the  lives  of  his 
fellows." 

Mordecai  paused,  and  Deronda,  feeling  that  the 
pause  was  expectant,  said,  "  Do  me  the  justice  to 
believe  that  I  was  not  inclined  to  call  your  words 
raving.  I  listen  that  I  may  know,  without  pre- 
judgment.  I  have  had  experience  which  gives 
me  a  keen  interest  in  the  story  of  a  spiritual  des- 
tiny embraced  willingly,  and  embraced  in  youth." 

"A  spiritual  destiny  embraced  willingly — in 
youth?"  Mordecai  repeated,  in  a  corrective  'tone. 
"  It  was  the  soul  fully  born  within  me,  and  it 
came  in  my  boyhood.  It  brought  its  own  world 
— a  mediaeval  world,  where  there  were  men  who 
made  the  ancient  language  live  again  in  new 
psalms  of  exile.  They  had  absorbed  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  Gentile  into  the  faith  of  the  Jew,  and 
they  still  yearned  toward  a  centre  for  our  race. 
One  of  their  souls  was  born  again  within  me,  and 
awaked  amid  the  memories  of  their  world.  It 
traveled  into  Spain  and  Provence;  it  debated 
with  Aben-Ezra ;  it  took  ship  with  Jehuda  ha- 
Levi ;  it  heard  the  roar  of  the  Crusaders  and  the 
shrieks  of  tortured  Israel.  And  when  its  dumb 
tongue  was  loosed,  it  spoke  the  speech  they  had 
made  alive  with  the  new  blood  of  their  ardor, 
their  sorrow,  and  their  martyred  trust :  it  sang 
with  the  cadence  of  their  strain." 

Mordecai  paused  again,  and  then  said,  in  a  loud, 
hoarse  whisper, 

"While  it  is  imprisoned  in  me,  it  will  never 
learn  another." 

"  Have  you  written  entirely  in  Hebrew,  then  ?" 
said  Deronda,  remembering  with  some  anxiety 
the  former  question  as  to  his  own  knowledge  of 
that  tongue. 

"  Yes — yes,"  said  Mordecai,  in  a  tone  of  deep 
sadness ;  "  in  my  youth  I  wandered  toward  that 
solitude,  not  feeling  that  it  was  a  solitude.  I 
had  the  ranks  of  the  great  dead  around  me ;  the 
martyrs  gathered  and  listened.  But  soon  I  found 
that  the  living  were  deaf  to  me.  At  first  I  saw 
my  life  spread  as  a  long  future :  I  said,  part  of 
my  Jewish  heritage  is  an  unbreaking  patience ; 
part  is  skill  to  seek  divers  methods  and  find  a 
rooting-place  where  the  planters  despair.  But 
there  came  new  messengers  from  the  Eternal 
I  had  to  bow  under  the  yoke  that  presses  on  the 
great  multitude  born  of  woman :  family  troubles 
called  me — I  had  to  work,  to  care,  not  for  my- 
self alone.  I  was  left  solitary  again ;  but  already 
the  angel  of  death  had  turned  to  me  and  beck- 
oned, and  I  felt  his  skirts  continually  on  my  path. 
I  loosed  not  my  effort.  I  besought  hearing  and 
help.  I  spoke ;  I  went  to  men  of  our  people — 
to  the  rich  in  influence  or  knowledge,  to  the  rich 
in  other  wealth.  But  I  found  none  to  listen  with 
understanding.  I  was  rebuked  for  error ;  I  was 
offered  a  small  sum  in  charity.  No  wonder.  I 
looked  poor ;  I  carried  a  bundle  of  Hebrew  man- 
uscript with  me ;  I  said,  our  chief  teachers  are 


170 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


misleading  the  hope  of  our  race.  Scholar  and 
merchant  were  both  too  busy  to  listen.  Scorn 
stood  as  interpreter  between  me  and  them.  One 
said, '  The  Book  of  Mormon  would  never  have  an- 
swered in  Hebrew ;  and  if  you  mean  to  address 
our  learned  men,  it  is  not  likely  you  can  teach 
them  any  thing.'  He  touched  a  truth  there." 

The  last  words  had  a  perceptible  irony  in  their 
hoarsened  tone. 

"  But  though  you  had  accustomed  yourself  to 
write  in  Hebrew,  few,  surely,  can  use  English  bet- 
ter," said  Deronda,  wanting  to  hint  consolation  in 
a  new  effort  for  which  he  could  smooth  the  way. 

Mordecai  shook  his  head  slowly  and  answered  : 

"  Too  late — too  late.  I  can  write  no  more.  My 
writing  would  be  like  this  gasping  breath.  But 
the  breath  may  wake  the  fount  of  pity — the  writ- 
ing not.  If  I  could  write  now  and  used  English, 
I  should  be  as  one  who  beats  a  board  to  summon 
those  who  have  been  used  to  no  signal  but  a  bell. 
My  soul  has  an  ear  to  hear  the  faults  of  its  own 
speech.  New  writing  of  mine  would  be  like  this 
body" — Mordecai  spread  his  arms — "within  it 
there  might  be  the  Ruach-ha-kodesh — the  breath 
of  divine  thought — but  men  would  smile  at  it  and 
say, '  A  poor  Jew !' — and  the  chief  smilers  would 
be"  of  my  own  people." 

Mordecai  let  his  hands  fall,  and  his  head  sink 
in  melancholy :  for  the  moment  he  had  lost  hold 
of  his  hope.  Despondency,  conjured  up  by  his 
own  words,  had  floated  in  and  hovered  above  him 
with  eclipsing  wings.  He  had  sunk  into  moment- 
ary darkness. 

"  I  feel  with  you — I  feel  strongly  with  you," 
said  Deronda,  in  a  clear  deep  voice  which  was 
itself  a  cordial,  apart  from  the  words  of  sympa- 
thy. "  But — forgive  me  if  I  speak  hastily — for 
what  you  have  actually  written  there  need  be  no 
utter  burial.  The  means  of  publication  are  with- 
in reach.  If  you  will  rely  on  me,  I  can  assure 
you  of  all  that  is  necessary  Jo  that  end." 

"  That  is  not  enough,"  said  Mordecai,  quickly, 
looking  up  again  with  the  flash  of  recovered  mem- 
ory and  confidence.  "  That  is  not  all  my  trust  in 
you.  You  must  be  not  only  a  hand  to  me,  but  a 
soul — believing  my  belief — being  moved  by  my 
reasons — hoping  my  hope — seeing  the  vision  I 
point  to — beholding  a  glory  where  I  behold  it !" 
— Mordecai  had  taken  a  step  nearer  as  he  spoke, 
and  now  laid  his  hand  on  Deronda's  arm  with  a 
tight  grasp ;  his  face,  little  more  than  a  foot  off, 
had  something  like  a  pale  flame  in  it — an  inten- 
sity of  reliance  that  acted  as  a  peremptory  claim, 
while  he  went  on — "  You  will  be  my  life :  it  will 
be  planted  afresh ;  it  will  grow.  You  shall  take 
the  inheritance ;  it  has  been  gathering  for  ages. 
The  generations  are  crowding  on  my  narrow  life 
as  a  bridge :  what  has  been  and  what  is  to  be  are 
meeting  there ;  and  the  bridge  is  breaking.  But 
I  have  found  you.  You  have  come  in  time.  You 
will  take  the  inheritance  which  the  base  son  re- 
fuses because  of  the  tombs  which  the  plow  and 
harrow  may  not  pass  over  or  the  gold-seeker  dis- 
turb :  you  will  take  the  sacred  inheritance  of  the 
Jew." 

Deronda  had  become  as  pallid  as  Mordecai. 
Quick  as  an  alarm  of  flood  or  fire,  there  spread 
within  him  not  only  a  compassionate  dread  of 
discouraging  this  fellow-man  who  urged  a  prayer 
as  of  one  in  the  lawt  agony,  but  also  the  opposing 
dread  of  fatally  feeding  an  illusion,  and  being 
hurried  on  to  a  self-committal  which  might  turn 


into  a  falsity.  The  peculiar  appeal  to  his  tender- 
ness overcame  the  repulsion  that  most  of  us  ex- 
perience under  a  grasp  and  speech  which  assume 
to  dominate.  The  difficulty  to  him  was  to  inflict 
the  accents  of  hesitation  and  doubt  on  this  ardent 
suffering  creature,  who  was  crowding  too  much 
of  his  brief  being  into  a  moment  of  perhaps  ex- 
travagant trust.  With  exquisite  instinct,  De- 
ronda, before  he  opened  his  lips,  placed  his  palm 
gently  on  Mordecai's  straining  hand — an  act  just 
then  equal  to  many  speeches.  And  after  that  he 
said,  without  haste,  as  if  conscious  that  he  might 
be  wrong, 

"  Do  you  forget  what  I  told  you  when  we  first 
saw  each  other  ?  Do  you  remember  that  I  said  I 
was  not  of  your  race  ?" 

"  It  can't  be  true,"  Mordecai  whispered  imme- 
diately, with  no  sign  of  shock.  The  sympathetic 
hand  still  upon  him  had  fortified  the  feeling 
which  was  stronger  than  those  words  of  denial. 
There  was  a  perceptible  pause,  Deronda  feeling  it 
impossible  to  answer,  conscious,  indeed,  that  the 
assertion,  "  It  can't  be  true,"  had  the  pressure  of 
argument  for  him.  Mordecai,  too  entirely  pos- 
sessed by  the  supreme  importance  of  the  relation 
between  himself  and  Deronda  to  have  any  other 
care  in  his  speech,  followed  up  that  assertion  by 
a  second,  which  came  to  his  lips  as  a  mere  se- 
quence of  his  long-cherished  conviction : 

"  You  are  not  sure  of  your  own  origin." 

"How  do  you  know  that  ?"  said  Daniel,  with  a 
habitual  shrinking  which  made  him  remove  his 
hand  from  Mordecai's,  who  also  relaxed  his  hold, 
and  fell  back  into  his  former  leaning  position. 

"  I  know  it — I  know  it ;  what  is  my  life  else  ?" 
said  Mordecai,  with  a  low  cry  of  impatience. 
"  Tell  me  every  thing :  tell  me  why  you  deny." 

He  could  have  no  conception  what  that  demand 
was  to  the  hearer — how  probingly  it  touched  the 
hidden  sensibility,  the  vividly  conscious  reticence 
of  years ;  how  the  uncertainty  he  was  insisting 
on  as  part  of  his  own  hope  had  always  for  Daniel 
been  a  threatening  possibility  of  painful  revela- 
tion about  his  mother.  But  the  moment  had  in- 
fluences which  were  not  only  new  but  solemn  to 
Deronda :  any  evasion  here  might  turn  out  to  be 
a  hateful  refusal  of  some  task  that  belonged  to 
him,  some  act  of  due  fellowship ;  in  any  case  it 
would  be  a  cruel  rebuff  to  a  being  who  was  ap- 
pealing to  him  as  a  forlorn  hope  under  the  shad- 
ow of  a  coming  doom.  After  a  few  moments  he 
said,  with  a  great  effort  over  himself,  determined 
to  tell  all  the  truth  briefly, 

"I  have  never  known  my  mother.  I  have  no 
knowledge  about  her.  I  have  never  called  any 
man  father.  But  I  am  convinced  that  my  father 
is  an  Englishman." 

Deronda's  deep  tones  had  a  tremor  in  them  as 
he  uttered  this  confession ;  and  all  the  while  there 
was  an  under-current  of  amazement  in  him  at  the 
strange  circumstances  under  which  he  uttered  it. 
It  seemed  as  if  Mordccai  were  hardly  overrating 
his  own  power  to  determine  the  action  of  the  friend 
whom  he  had  mysteriously  chosen. 

"  It  will  be  seen— it  will  be  declared,"  said  Mor- 
decai,  triumphantly.  "  The  world  grows,  and  its 
frame  is  knit  together  by  the  growing  soul ;  dim, 
dim  at  first,  then  clearer  and  more  clear,  the  con- 
sciousness discerns  remote  stirrings.  As  thoughts 
move  within  us  darkly,  and  shake  us  before  they 
are  fully  discerned,  so  events— so  beings :  they 
are  knit  with  us  in  the  growth  of  the  world.  You 


BOOK  V.— MORDECAI. 


171 


hare  risen  within  me  like  a  thought  not  fully 
spelled ;  my  soul  is  shaken  before  the  words  are 
all  there.  The  rest  will  come — it  will  come." 

"  We  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the 
outward  event  has  not  always  been  a  fulfillment 
of  the  firmest  faith,"  said  Deronda,  in  a  tone  that 
was  made  hesitating  by  the  painfully  conflicting 
desires,  not  to  give  any  severe  blow  to  Mordecai, 
and  not  to  give  his  confidence  a  sanction  which 
might  have  the  severest  blows  in  reserve. 

Mordecai's  face,  which  had  been  illuminated  to 
the  utmost  in  that  last  declaration  of  his  confi- 
dence, changed  under  Deronda's  words,  but  not 
into  any  show  of  collapsed  trust :  the  force  did 
not  disappear  from  the  expression,  but  passed 
from  the  triumphant  into  the  firmly  resistant. 

"  You  would  remind  me  that  I  may  be  under 
an  illusion — that  the  history  of  our  people's  trust 
has  been  full  of  illusion.  I  face  it  all."  Here 
Mordecai  paused  a  moment.  Then  bending  his 
head  a  little  forward,  he  said,  in  his  hoarse  whis- 
per, "  So  it  might  be  with  my  trust,  if  you  would 
make  it  an  illusion.  But  you  will  not." 

The  very  sharpness  with  which  these  words 
penetrated  Deronda  made  him  feel  the  more  that 
here  was  a  crisis  in  which  he  must  be  firm. 

"  What  my  birth  was  does  not  lie  in  my  will," 
he  answered.  "  My  sense  of  claims  on  me  can 
not  be  independent  of  my  knowledge  there.  And 
I  can  not  promise  you  that  I  will  try  to  hasten 
a  disclosure.  Feelings  which  have  struck  root 
through  half  my  life  may  still  hinder  me  from 
doing  what  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  do. 
Every  thing  must  be  waited  for.  I  must  know 
more  of  the  truth  about  my  own  life,  and  I  must 
know  more  of  what  it  would  become  if  it  were 
made  a  part  of  yours." 

Mordecai  had  folded  his  arms  again  while  De- 
ronda was  speaking,  and  now  answered  with  equal 
firmness,  though  with  difficult  breathing : 

"  You  shall  know.  What  are  we  met  for,  but 
that  you  should  know  ?  Your  doubts  lie  as  light 
as  dust  on  my  belief.  I  know  the  philosophies 
of  this  time  and  of  other  times :  if  I  chose,  I 
could  answer  a  summons  before  their  tribunals. 
I  could  silence  the  beliefs  which  are  the  mother- 
tongue  of  my  soul  and  speak  with  the  rote-learn- 
ed language  of  a  system  that  gives  you  the  spell- 
ing of  all  things,  sure  of  its  alphabet  covering 
them  all.  I  could  silence  them :  may  not  a  man 
silence  his  awe  or  his  love  and  take  to  finding 
reasons,  which  others  demand  ?  But  if  his  love 
lies  deeper  than  any  reasons  to  be  found  ?  Man 
finds  his  pathways :  at  first  they  were  foot  tracks, 
as  those  of  the  beast  in  the  wilderness ;  now  they 
are  swift  and  invisible :  his  thought  dives  through 
the  ocean,  and  his  wishes  thread  the  air :  has  he 
found  all  the  pathways  yet  ?  What  reaches  him, 
stays  with  him,  rules  him :  he  must  accept  it,  not 
knowing  its  pathway.  Say  my  expectation  of 
you  has  grown  but  as  false  hopes  grow.  That 
doubt  is  in  your  mind  ?  Well,  my  expectation 
•was  there,  and  you  are  come.  Men  have  died  of 
thirst.  But  I  was  thirsty,  and  the  water  is  on 
my  lips.  What  are  doubts  to  me  ?  In  the  hour 
when  you  come  to  me  and  say, '  I  reject  your  soul : 
I  know  that  I  am  not  a  Jew :  we  have  no  lot  in 
common' — I  shall  not  doubt.  I  shall  be  certain 
—certain  that  I  have  been  deluded.  That  hour 
will  never  come !" 

Deronda  felt  a  new  chord  sounding  in  this 
speech :  it  was  rather  imperious  than  appealing — 


had  more  of  conscious  power  than  of  the  yearn- 
ing need  which  had  acted  as  a  beseeching  grasp 
on  him  before.  And  usually,  though  he  was  the 
reverse  of  pugnacious,  such  a  change  of  attitude 
toward  him  would  have  weakened  his  inclination 
to  admit  a  claim.  But  here  there  was  something 
that  balanced  his  resistance  and  kept  it  aloof. 
This  strong  man  whose  gaze  was  sustainedly  calm 
and  his  finger-nails  pink  with  health,  who  was 
exercised  in  all  questioning,  and  accused  of  ex- 
cessive mental  independence,  still  felt  a  subduing 
influence  over  him  in  the  tenacious  certitude  of 
the  fragile  creature  before  him,  whose  pallid  yel- 
low nostril  was  tense  with  effort  as  his  breath 
labored  under  the  burden  of  eager  speech.  The 
influence  seemed  to  strengthen  the  bond  of  sym- 
pathetic obligation.  In  Deronda  at  this  moment 
the  desire  to  escape  what  might  turn  into  a  try- 
ing embarrassment  was  no  more  likely  to  deter- 
mine action  than  the  solicitations  of  indolence 
are  likely  to  determine  it  in  one  with  whom  indus- 
try is  a  daily  law.  He  answered  simply, 

"  It  is  my  wish  to  meet  and  satisfy  your  wish- 
es wherever  that  is  possible  to  me.  It  is  certain 
to  me  at  least  that  I  desire  not  to  undervalue 
your  toil  and  your  suffering.  Let  me  know  your 
thoughts.  But  where  can  we  meet  ?" 

"  I  have  thought  of  that,"  said  Mordecai.  "It 
is  not  hard  for  you  to  come  into  this  neighbor- 
hood later  in  the  evening  ?  You  did  so  once." 

"  I  can  manage  it  very  well  occasionally,"  said 
Deronda.  "  You  live  under  the  same  roof  with 
the  Cohens,  I  think  ?" 

Before  Mordecai  could  answer,  Mr.  Ram  re-en- 
tered to  take  his  place  behind  the  counter.  He 
was  an  elderly  son  of  Abraham,  whose  childhood 
had  fallen  on  the  evil  times  at  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  and  who  remained  amidst  this  smart 
and  instructed  generation  as  a  preserved  speci- 
men, soaked  through  and  through  with  the  effect 
of  the  poverty  and  contempt  which  were  the 
common  heritage  of  most  English  Jews  seventy 
years  ago.  He  had  none  of  the  oily  cheerfulness 
observable  in  Mr.  Cohen's  aspect :  his  very  feat- 
ures— broad  and  chubby — showed  that  tendency 
to  look  mongrel  without  due  cause  which,  in  a 
miscellaneous  London  neighborhood,  may  per- 
haps be  compared  with  the  marvels  of  imitation 
in  insects,  and  may  have  been  nature's  imperfect 
effort  on  behalf  of  the  purer  Caucasian  to  shield 
him  from  the  shame  and  spitting  to  which  purer 
features  would  have  been  exposed  in  the  times 
of  zeal.  Mr.  Ram  dealt  ably  in  books  in  the 
same  way  that  he  would  have  dealt  in  tins  of 
meat  and  other  commodities — without  knowledge 
or  responsibility  as  to  the  proportion  of  rotten- 
ness or  nourishment  they  might  contain.  But  he 
believed  in  Mordecai's  learning  as  something  mar- 
velous, and  was  not  sorry  that  his  conversation 
should  be  sought  by  a  bookish  gentleman,  whose 
visits  had  twice  ended  in  a  purchase.  He  greet- 
ed Deronda  with  a  crabbed  good-will,  and,  putting 
on  large  silver  spectacles,  appeared  at  once  to  ab- 
stract himself  in  the  daily  accounts. 

But  Deronda  and  Mordecai  were  soon  in  the 
street  together,  and,  without  any  explicit  agree- 
ment as  to  their  direction,  were  walking  toward 
Ezra  Cohen's. 

"  We  can't  meet  there :  my  room  is  too  nar- 
row," said  Mordecai,  taking  up  the  thread  of  talk 
where  they  had  dropped  it.  "  But  there  is  a  tav- 
ern not  far  from  here  where  I  sometimes  go  to  a 


172 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


club.  It  is  the  Hand  and  Banner,  in  the  street  at 
the  next  turning,  five  doors  down.  We  can  have 
the  parlor  there  any  evening." 

"  We  can  try  that  for  once,"  said  Deronda. 
"  But  you  will  perhaps  let  me  provide  you  with 
some  lodging  which  would  give  you  more  free- 
dom and  comfort  than  where  you  are." 

"No;  I  need  nothing.  My  outer  life  is  as 
naught.  I  will  take  nothing  less  precious  from 
you  than  your  soul's  brotherhood.  I  will  think 
of  nothing  else  yet.  But  I  am  glad  you  are  rich. 
You  did  not  need  money  on  that  diamond  ring. 
You  had  some  other  motive  for  bringing  it." 

Deronda  was  a  little  startled  by  this  clear-sight- 
edness ;  but  before  he  could  reply,  Mordecai  add- 
ed, "  It  is  all  one.  Had  you  been  in  need  of  the 
money,  the  great  end  would  have  been  that  we 
should  meet  again.  But  you  are  rich  ?"  he  end- 
ed, in  a  tone  of  interrogation. 

"  Not  rich,  except  in  the  sense  that  every  one 
is  rich  who  has  more  than  he  needs  for  himself." 

"I  desired  that  your  life  should  be  free,"  said 
Mordecai, dreamily — "mine  has  been  a  bondage." 

It  was  clear  that  he  had  no  interest  in  the  fact 
of  Deronda's  appearance  at  the  Cohens'  beyond 
its  relation  to  his  own  ideal  purpose.  Despair- 
ing of  leading  easily  up  to  the  question  he  wished 
to  ask,  Deronda  determined  to  put  it  abruptly, 
and  said, 

"  Can  you  tell  me  why  Mrs.  Cohen,  the  mother, 
must  not  be  spoken  to  about  her  daughter  ?" 

There  was  no  immediate  answer,  and  he  thought 
that  he  should  have  to  repeat  the  question.  The 
fact  was  that  Mordecai  had  heard  the  words,  but 
had  to  drag  his  mind  to  a  new  subject  away  from 
his  passionate  preoccupation.  After  a  few  mo- 
ments, he  replied,  with  a  careful  effort  such  as  he 
would  have  used  if  he  had  been  asked  the  road 
to  Holborn : 

"  I  know  the  reason.    But  I  will  not  ppeak  even 


of  trivial  family  affairs  which  I  have  heard  in  the 
privacy  of  the  family.  I  dwell  in  their  tent  as  in 
a  sanctuary.  Their  history,  so  far  as  they  injure 
none  other,  is  their  own  possession." 

Deronda  felt  the  blood  mounting  to  his  cheeks 
at  a  sort  of  rebuke  he  was  little  used  to,  and  he 
also  found  himself  painfully  baffled  where  he  had 
reckoned  with  some  confidence  on  getting  decisive 
knowledge.  He  became  the  more  conscious  of 
emotional  strain  from  the  excitements  of  the  day ; 
and  although  he  had  the  money  in  his  pocket  to 
redeem  his  ring,  he  recoiled  from  the  further  task 
of  a  visit  to  the  Cohens',  which  must  be  made 
not  only  under  the  former  uncertainty,  but  under 
a  new  disappointment  as  to  the  possibility  of  its 
removal. 

"  I  will  part  from  you  now,"  he  said,  just  be- 
fore they  could  reach  Cohen's  door ;  and  Morde- 
cai paused,  looking  up  at  him  with  an  anxious, 
fatigued  face  under  the  gas-light. 

"  When  will  you  come  back »"  he  said,  with 
slow  emphasis. 

"  May  I  leave  that  unfixed  ?  May  I  ask  for  you 
at  the  Cohens'  any  evening  after  your  hour  at  the 
book-shop  ?  There  is  no  objection,  I  suppose,  to 
their  knowing  that  you  and  I  meet  in  private  ?" 

"None,"  said  Mordecai.  "But  the  days  I  wait 
now  are  longer  than  the  years  of  niy  strength. 
Life  shrinks :  what  was  but  a  tithe  is  now  the 
half.  My  hope  abides  in  you." 

"  I  will  be  faithful,"  said  Deronda — he  could 
not  have  left  those  words  unuttered.  "I  will 
come  the  first  evening  I  can  after  seven :  on  Sat- 
urday or  Monday,  if  possible.  Trust  me." 

He  put  out  his  ungloved  hand.  Mordecai,  clasp- 
ing it  eagerly,  seemed  to  feel  a  new  instreaming 
of  confidence,  and  he  said,  with  some  recovered 
energy,  "  This  is  come  to  pass,  and  the  rest  will 
come." 

That  was  their  good-by. 


BOOK    VL—EEVELATIONS. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

"  This,  too,  is  probable,  according  to  that  saying  of 
Agathon :  '  It  is  a  part  of  probability  that  many  im- 
probable things  will  happen.'"— ABISTOTLK :  Poetics. 

IMAGINE  the  conflict  in  a  mind  like  Deronda's, 
given  not  only  to  feel  strongly,  but  to  question 
actively,  on  the  evening  after  that  interview  with 
Mordecai.  To  a  young  man  of  much  duller  sus- 
ceptibilities the  adventure  might  have  seemed 
enough  out  of  the  common  way  to  divide  his 
thoughts ;  but  it  had  stirred  Deronda  so  deeply 
that,  with  the  usual  reaction  of  his  intellect,  he 
began  to  examine  the  grounds  of  his  emotion, 
and  consider  how  far  he  must  resist  its  guidance. 
The  consciousness  that  he  was  half  dominated 
by  Mordecai's  energetic  certitude,  and  still  more 
by  his  fervent  trust,  roused  his  alarm.  It  was 
his  characteristic  bias  to  shrink  from  the  moral 
stupidity  of  valuing  lightly  what  had  come  close 
to  him,  and  of  missing  blindly  in  his  own  life  of 
to-day  the  crises  which  he  recognized  as  moment- 
ous and  sacred  in  the  historic  life  of  men.  If 
he  had  read  of  this  incident  as  having  happened 
centuries  ago  in  Rome,  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  Pal- 
estine, Cairo,  to  some  man  young  as  himself,  dis- 


satisfied with  his  neutral  life,  and  wanting  some 
closer  fellowship,  some  more  special  duty  to  give 
him  ardor  for  the  possible  consequences  of  his 
work,  it  would  have  appeared  to  him  quite  natu- 
ral that  the  incident  should  have  created  a  deep 
impression  on  that  far-off  man,  whose  clothing 
and  action  would  have  been  seen  in  his  imagina- 
tion as  part  of  an  age  chiefly  known  to  us  thrdugh 
ita  more  serious  effects.  Why  should  he  be 
ashamed  of  his  own  agitated  feeling  merely  be- 
cause he  dressed  for  dinner,  wore  a  white  tie, 
and  lived  among  people  who  might  laugh  at  his 
owning  any  conscience  in  the  matter  as  the  sol- 
emn folly  of  taking  himself  too  seriously  ? — that 
bugbear  of  circles  in  which  the  lack  of  grave 
emotion  passes  for  wit.  From  such  cowardice 
before  modish  ignorance  and  obtuseness  Deron- 
da shrank.  But  he  also  shrank  from  having  his 
course  determined  by  more  contagion,  without 
consent  of  reason,  or  from  allowing  a  reverential 
pity  for  spiritual  struggle  to  hurry  him  along  a 
dimly  seen  path. 

What,  after  all,  had  really  happened?  He 
knew  quite  accurately  the  answer  Sir  Hugo  would 
have  given :  "  A  consumptive  Jew,  possessed  by 
a  fanaticism  which  obstacles  and  liastcning  death 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


intensified,  had  fixed  on  Deronda  as  the  antitype 
of  some  visionary  image,  the  offspring  of  wedded 
Jkope  and  despair :  despair  of  his  own  life,  irre- 
pressible hope  in  the  propagation  of  his  fanatical 
beliefs.  The  instance  was  perhaps  odd,  excep- 
tional in  its  form,  but  substantially  it  was  not 
rare.  Fanaticism  was  not  so  common  as  bank- 
ruptcy, but  taken  in  all  its  aspects,  it  was  abun- 
dant enough.  While  Mordecai  was  waiting  on 
the  bridge  for  the  fulfillment  of  his  visions,  an- 
other man  was  convinced  that  he  had  the  mathe- 
matical key  of  the  universe  which  would  super- 
sede Newton,  and  regarded  all  known  physicists 
as  conspiring  to  stifle  his  discovery  and  keep  the 
universe  locked ;  another,  that  he  had  the  meta- 
physical key,  with  just  that  hair's-breadth  of  differ- 
ence from  the  old  wards  which  would  make  it  fit 
exactly.  Scattered  here  and  there  in  every  direc- 
tion you  might  find  a  terrible  person,  with  more  or 
less  power  of  speech,  and  with  an  eye  either  glitter- 
ing or  preternaturally  dull,  on  the  look-out  for  the 
man  who  must  hear  him ;  and  in  most  cases  he 
had  volumes  which  it  was  difficult  to  get  printed, 
or  if  printed,  to  get  read.  This  Mordecai  happen- 
ed to  have  a  more  pathetic  aspect,  a  more  passion- 
ate, penetrative  speech,  than  was  usual  with  such 
monomaniacs :  he  was  more  poetical  than  a  social 
reformer  with  colored  views  of  the  new  moral 
world  in  parallelograms,  or  than  an  enthusiast  in 
sewage ;  still  he  came  under  the  same  class.  It 
would  be  only  right  and  kind  to  indulge  him  a 
little,  to  comfort  him  with  such  help  as  was  prac- 
ticable ;  but  what  likelihood  was  there  that  his 
notions  had  the  sort  of  value  he  ascribed  to 
them  ?  In  such  cases  a  man  of  the  world  knows 
what  to  think  beforehand.  And  as  to  Morde- 
cai's  conviction  that  he  had  found  a  new  execu- 
tive self,  it  might  be  preparing  for  him  the  worst 
of  disappointments — that  which  presents  itself  as 
final." 

Deronda's  ear  caught  all  these  negative  whis- 
perings ;  nay,  he  repeated  them  distinctly  to  him- 
self. It  was  not  the  first,  but  it  was  the  most 
pressing,  occasion  on  which  he  had  to  face  this 
question  of  the  family  likeness  among  the  heirs 
of  enthusiasm,  whether  prophets  or  dreamers  of 
dreams,  whether  the 

"Great  benefactors  of  mankind,  deliverers," 

or  the  devotees  of  phantasmal  discovery — from 
the  first  believer  in  his  own  unmanifested  inspi- 
ration, down  to  the  last  inventor  of  an  ideal  ma- 
chine that  will  achieve  perpetual  motion.  The 
kinship  of  human  passion,  the  sameness  of  mor- 
tal scenery,  inevitably  fill  fact  with  burlesque  and 
parody.  Error  and  folly  have  had  their  heca- 
tombs of  martyrs.  Reduce  the  grandest  type  of 
man  hitherto  known  to  an  abstract  statement  of 
his  qualities  and  efforts,  and  he  appears  in  dan- 
gerous company :  say  that,  like  Copernicus  and 
Galileo,  he  was  immovably  convinced  in  the  face 
of  hissing  incredulity ;  but  so  is  the  contriver  of 
perpetual  motion.  We  can  not  fairly  try  the 
spirits  by  this  sort  of  test.  If  we  want  to  avoid 
giving  the  dose  of  hemlock  or  the  sentence  of 
banishment  in  the  wrong  case,  nothing  will  do  but 
a  capacity  to  understand  the  subject-matter  on 
which  the  immovable  man  is  convinced,  and  fel- 
lowship with  human  travail,  both  near  and  afar, 
to  hinder  us  from  scanning  any  deep  experience 
lightly.  Shall  we  say,  "  Let  the  ages  try  the  spir- 
its, and  see  what  they  are  worth  ?"  Why,  we  are 


the  beginning  of  the  ages,  which  can  only  be  just 
by  virtue  of  just  judgments  hi  separate  human 
breasts — separate  yet  combined.  Even  steam- 
engines  could  not  have  got  made  without  that 
condition,  but  must  have  staid  in  the  mind  of 
James  Watt. 

This  track  of  thinking  was  familiar  enough  to 
Deronda  to  have  saved  him  from  any  contemptu- 
ous prejudgtnent  of  Mordecai,  even  if  their  com- 
munication had  been  free  from  that  peculiar 
claim  on  himself  strangely  ushered  in  by  some 
long-growing  preparation  in  the  Jew's  agitated 
mind.  This  claim,  indeed,  considered  in  what  is 
called  a  rational  way,  might  seem  justifiably  dis- 
missed as  illusory  and  even  preposterous ;  but  it 
was  precisely  what  turned  Mordecai's  hold  on 
him  from  an  appeal  to  his  ready  sympathy  into 
a  clutch  on  his  struggling  conscience.  Our  con- 
sciences are  not  all  of  the  same  pattern,  an  inner 
deliverance  of  fixed  laws :  they  are  the  voice  of 
sensibilities  as  various  as  our  memories  (which 
also  have  their  kinship  and  likeness).  And  De- 
ronda's conscience  included  sensibilities  beyond 
the  common,  enlarged  by  his  early  habit  of  think- 
ing himself  imaginatively  into  the  experience  of 
others. 

What  was  the  claim  this  eager  soul  made  upon 
him  ? — "  You  must  believe  my  beliefs — be  moved 
by  my  reasons — hope  my  hopes — see  the  vision  I 
point  to — behold  a  glory  where  I  behold  it  I"  To 
take  such  a  demand  in  the  light  of  an  obligation 
in  any  direct  sense  would  have  been  preposterous 
— to  have  seemed  to  admit  it  would  have  been 
dishonesty ;  and  Deronda,  looking  on  the  agita- 
tion of  those  moments,  felt  thankful  that  in  the 
midst  of  his  compassion  he  had  preserved  him- 
self from  the  bondage  of  false  concessions.  The 
claim  hung,  too,  on  a  supposition  which  might 
be — nay,  probably  was — in  discordance  with  the 
full  fact :  the  supposition  that  he,  Deronda,  was 
of  Jewish  blood.  Was  there  ever  a  more  hypo- 
thetic appeal  ? 

But  since  the  age  of  thirteen  Deronda  had  as- 
sociated the  deepest  experience  of  his  affections 
with  what  was  a  pure  supposition,  namely,  that 
Sir  Hugo  was  his  father :  that  was  a  hypothesis 
which  had  been  the  source  of  passionate  struggle 
within  him ;  by  its  light  he  had  been  accustomed 
to  subdue  feelings  and  to  cherish  them.  He  had 
been  well  used  to  find  a  motive  in  a  conception 
which  might  be  disproved ;  and  he  had  been  also 
used  to  think  of  some  revelation  that  might  in- 
fluence his  view  of  the  particular  duties  belonging 
to  him.  To  be  in  a  state  of  suspense  which  was 
also  one  of  emotive  activity  and  scruple,  was  a 
familiar  attitude  of  his  conscience. 

And  now,  suppose  that  wish-begotten  belief  in 
his  Jewish  birth,  and  that  extravagant  demand  of 
discipleship,  to  be  the  foreshadowing  of  an  actual 
discovery  and  a  genuine  spiritual  result :  suppose 
that  Mordecai's  ideas  made  a  real  conquest  over 
Deronda's  conviction?  Nay, it  was  conceivable 
that  as  Mordecai  needed  and  believed  that  he  had 
found  an  active  replenishment  of  himself,  so  De- 
ronda might  receive  from  Mordecai's  mind  the 
complete  ideal  shape  of  that  personal  duty  and 
citizenship  which  lay  in  his  own  thought  like  sculp- 
tured fragments  certifying  some  beauty  yearned 
after,  but  not  traceable  by  divination. 

As  that  possibility  presented  itself  in  his  medi- 
tations, he  was  aware  that  it  would  be  called 
dreamy,  and  began  to  defend  it.  If  the  influence 


174 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


he  imagined  himself  submitting  to  had  been  that 
of  some  honored  professor,  some  authority  in  a 
seat  of  learning,  some  philosopher  who  had  been 
accepted  as  a  voice  of  the  age,  would  a  thorough 
receptiveness  toward  direction  have  been  ridi- 
culed ?  Only  by  those  who  hold  it  a  sign  of  weak- 
ness to  be  obliged  for  an  idea,  and  prefer  to  hint 
that  they  have  implicitly  held  in  a  more  correct 
form  whatever  others  have  stated  with  a  sadly 
short-coming  explicitness.  After  all,  what  was 
there  but  vulgarity  in  taking  the  fact  that  Mor- 
decai  was  a  poor  Jewish  workman,  and  that  he 
was  to  be  met  perhaps  on  a  sanded  floor  in  the 
parlor  of  the  Hand  and  Banner,  as  a  reason  for 
determining  beforehand  that  there  was  not  some 
spiritual  force  within  him  that  might  have  a  de- 
termining effect  on  a  white-handed  gentleman  ? 
There  is  a  legend  told  of  the  Emperor  Domitian, 
that  having  heard  of  a  Jewish  family  of  the  house 
of  David,  whence  the  ruler  -of  the  world  was  to 
spring,  he  sent  for  its  members  in  alarm,  but 
quickly  released  them  on  observing  that  they  had 
the  hands  of  work-people — being  of  just  the  oppo- 
site opinion  with  that  Rabbi  who  stood  waiting  at 
the  gate  of  Rome  in  confidence  that  the  Messiah 
would  be  found  among  the  destitute  who  entered 
there.  Both  Emperor  and  Rabbi  were  wrong  in 
their  trust  of  outward  signs :  poverty  and  poor 
clothes  are  no  sign  of  inspiration,  said  Deronda 
to  his  inward  objector,  but  they  have  gone  with 
it  in  some  remarkable  cases.  And  to  regard  dis- 
cipleship  as  out  of  the  question  because  of  them 
would  be  mere  dullness  of  imagination. 

A  more  plausible  reason  for  putting  disciple- 
ship  out  of  the  question  was  the  strain  of  vision- 
ary excitement  in  Mordecai,  which  turned  his 
wishes  into  overmastering  impressions,  and  made 
him  read  outward  facts  as  fulfillment.  Was  such 
a  temper  of  mind  likely  to  accompany  that  wise 
estimate  of  consequences  which  is  the  only  safe- 
guard from  fatal  error,  even  to  ennobling  mo- 
tive ?  But  it  remained  to  be  seen  whether  that 
rare  conjunction  existed  or  not  in  Mordecai :  per- 
haps his  might  be  one  of  the  natures  where  a 
wise  estimate  of  consequences  is  fused  in  the 
fires  of  that  passionate  belief  which  determines 
the  consequences  it  believes  in.  The  inspirations 
of  the  world  have  come  in  that  way  too:  even 
strictly  measuring  science  could  hardly  have  got 
on  without  that  forecasting  ardor  which  feels  the 
agitations  of  discovery  beforehand,  and  has  a 
faith  in  its  preconception  that  surmounts  many 
failures  of  experiment.  And  in  relation  to  hu- 
man motives  and  actions,  passionate  belief  has  a 
fuller  efficacy.  Here  enthusiasm  may  have  the 
validity  of  proof,  and,  happening  in  one  soul, 
give  the  type  of  what  will  one  day  be  general. 

At  least,  Deronda  argued,  Mordecai's  visionary 
excitability  was  hardly  a  reason  for  concluding 
beforehand  that  he  was  not  worth  listening  to 
except  for  pity's  sake.  Suppose  he  had  intro- 
duced himself  as  one  of  the  strictest  reasoners : 
do  they  form  a  body  of  men  hitherto  free  from 
false  conclusions  and  illusory  speculations  ?  The 
driest  argument  has  its  hallucinations,  too  hast- 
ily concluding  that  its  net  will  now  at  last  be 
large  enough  to  hold  the  universe.  Men  may 
dream  in  demonstrations,  and  cut  out  an  illusory 
world  in  the  shape  of  axioms,  definitions,  and 
propositions,  with  a  final  exclusion  of  fact  signed 
Q.E.D.  No  formulas  for  thinking  will  save  us 
mortals  from  mistake  in  our  imperfect  apprehen- 


sion of  the  matter  to  be  thought  about.  And 
since  the  unemotional  intellect  may  carry  us  into 
a  mathematical  dream-land  where  nothing  is  bu^L 
what  is  not,  perhaps  an  emotional  intellect  may 
have  absorbed  into  its  passionate  vision  of  possi- 
bilities some  truth  of  what  will  be — the  more 
comprehensive  massive  life  feeding  theory  with 
new  material,  as  the  sensibility  of  the  artist  seizes 
combinations  which  science  explains  and  justifies. 
At  any  rate,  presumptions  to  the  contrary  are 
not  to  be  trusted.  We  must  be  patient  with  the 
inevitable  make-shift  of  our  human  thinking, 
whether  in  its  sum  total  or  hi  the  separate  minds 
that  have  made  the  sum.  Columbus  had  some 
impressions  about  himself  which  we  call  super- 
stitions, and  used  some  arguments  which  we  dis- 
approve ;  but  he  had  also  some  true  physical  con- 
ceptions, and  he  had  the  passionate  patience  of 
genius  to  make  them  tell  on  mankind.  The  world 
has  made  up  its  mind  rather  contemptuously  about 
those  who  were  deaf  to  Columbus. 

"  My  contempt  for  them  binds  me  to  see  that 
I  don't  adopt  their  mistake  on  a  small  scale," 
said  Deronda,  "  and  make  myself  deaf  with  the 
assumption  that  there  can  not  be  any  momentous 
relation  between  this  Jew  and  me,  simply  because 
he  has  clad  it  in  illusory  notions.  What  I  can 
be  to  him,  or  he  to  me,  may  not  at  all  depend  on 
his  persuasion  about  the  way  we  came  together. 
To  me  the  way  seems  made  up  of  plainly  discern- 
ible links.  If  I  had  not  found  Mirah,  it  is  prob- 
able that  I  should  not  have  begun  to  be  specially 
interested  in  the  Jews,  and  certainly  I  should  not 
have  gone  on  that  loitering  search  after  an  Ezra 
Cohen  which  made  me  pause  at  Ram's  book-shop 
and  ask  the  price  of  Maimon.  Mordecai,  on  his 
side,  had  his  visions  of  a  disciple,  and  he  saw  me 
by  their  light ;  I  corresponded  well  enough  with 
the  image  his  longing  had  created.  He  took  me 
for  one  of  his  race.  Suppose  that  his  impression 
— the  elderly  Jew  at  Frankfort  seemed  to  have 
something  like  it — suppose,  in  spite  of  all  pre- 
sumptions to  the  contrary,  that  his  impression 
should  somehow  be  proved  true,  and  that  I  should 
come  actually  to  share  any  of  the  ideas  he  is  de- 
voted to  ?  This  is  the  only  question  which  really 
concerns  the  effect  of  our  meeting  on  my  life. 

"But  if  the  issue  should  be  quite  different? 
— well,  there  will  be  something  painful  to  go 
through.  I  shall  almost  inevitably  have  to  be  an 
active  cause  of  that  poor  fellow's  crushing  disap- 
pointment. Perhaps  this  issue  is  the  one  I  had 
need  prepare  myself  for.  I  fear  that  no  tender- 
ness of  mine  can  make  his  suffering  lighter. 
Would  the  alternative — that  I  should  not  disap- 
point him — be  less  painful  to  me  ?" 

Here  Deronda  wavered.  Feelings  had  lately 
been  at  work  within  him  which  had  very  much 
modified  the  reluctance  he  would  formerly  have 
had  to  think  -of  himself  as  probably  a  Jew.  And, 
if  you  like,  he  was  romantic.  That  young  ener- 
gy and  spirit  of  adventure  which  have  helped  to 
create  the-world-wide  legends  of  youthful  heroes 
going  to  seek  the  hidden  tokens  of  their  birth  and 
its  inheritance  of  tasks,  gave  him  a  certain  quiv- 
ering interest  in  the  bare  possibility  that  he  was 
entering  on  a  like  track — all  the  more  because 
the  track  was  one  of  thought  as  well  as  action. 

"  The  bare  possibility."  He  could  not  admit 
it  to  be  more.  The  belief  that  his  father  was  an 
Englishman  only  grew  firmer  under  the  weak  as- 
saults of  unwarranted  doubt.  And  that  ;i  mo- 


BOOK  YL— REVELATIONS. 


175 


meut  should  ever  come  in  which  that  belief  was 
declared  a  delusion,  was  something  of  which  De- 
ronda  would  not  say,  "  I  should  be  glad."  His 
life-long  affection  for  Sir  Hugo,  stronger  than  all 
his  resentment,  made  liini  shrink  from  admitting 
that  wish. 

Which  way  soever  the  truth  might  lie,  he  re- 
peated to  himself  what  he  had  said  to  Mordecai 
— that  he  could  not  without  farther  reason  un- 
dertake to  hasten  its  discovery.  Nay,  he  was 
tempted  now  to  regard  his  uncertainty  as  a  con- 
dition to  be  cherished  for  the  present.  If  fur- 
ther intercourse  revealed  nothing  but  illusions  as 
what  he  was  expected  to  share  in,  the  want  of 
any  valid  evidence  that  he  was  a  Jew  might  save 
Mordecai  the  worst  shock  in  the  refusal  of  fra- 
ternity. It  might  even  be  justifiable  to  use  the 
uncertainty  on  this  point  in  keeping  up  a  sus- 
pense which  would  induce  Mordecai  to  accept 
those  offices  of  friendship  that  Deronda  longed 
to  urge  on  him. 

These  were  the  meditations  that  busied  De- 
ronda in  the  interval  of  four  days  before  he 
could  fulfill  his  promise  to  call  for  Mordecai  at 
Ezra  Cohen's,  Sir  Hugo's  demands  on  him  often 
lasting  to  an  hour  so  late  as  to  put  the  evening 
expedition  to  Holborn  out  of  the  question. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

"  Wenn  es  cine  Stuf  cnleiter  von  Leiden  giebt,  so  hat 
Israel  die  hiichste  Staffel  erstiegen ;  wenn  die  Dauer 
der  Schtnerzen  und  die  Gednld,  mit  welcher  sie  ertra- 
gen  werden,  adeln,  so  nehmen  es  die  Juden  mit  deu 
Hochgeborenen  aller  Lander  auf  ;  wenn  eine  Literatur 
reich  genannt  wird,  die  wenige  klassische  Tranerspiele 
besitzt,  welcher  Platz  gebuhrt  dann  einer  Tragodie  die 
anderthalb  Jahrtausende  wiihrt,  gedichtet  und  darge- 
etellt  von  den  Helden  selber  ?" — Zuuz :  Die  Syiiagoyate 
Poesie  des  Mittelalters. 

"  IF  there  are  ranks  in  suffering,  Israel  takes 
precedence  of  all  the  nations  ;  if  the  duration  of 
sorrows  and  the  patience  with  which  they  are 
borne  ennoble,  the  Jews  are  among  the  aristocracy 
of  every  land  ;  if  a  literature  is  called  rich  in  the 
possession  of  a  few  classic  tragedies,  what  shall 
we  say  to  a  National  Tragedy  lasting  for  fifteen 
hundred  years,  in  which  the  poets  and  the  actors 
were  also  the  heroes  ?" 

Deronda  had  lately  been  reading  that  passage 
of  Zunz,  and  it  occurred  to  him  by  way  of  con- 
trast when  he  was  going  to  the  Cohens',  who 
certainly  bore  no  obvious  stamp  of  distinction  in 
sorrow  or  in  any  other  form  of  aristocracy.  Ezra 
Cohen  was  not  clad  in  the  sublime  pathos  of  the 
martyr,  and  his  taste  for  money-getting  seemed 
to  be  favored  with  that  success  which  has  been 
the  most  exasperating  difference  in  the  greed  of 
Jews  during  all  the  ages  of  their  dispersion.  This 
Jeshurun  of  a  pawnbroker  was  not  a  symbol  of 
the  great  Jewish  tragedy ;  and  yet,  was  there 
not  something  typical  in  the  fact  that  a  life  like 
Mordecai's — a  frail  incorporation  of  the  national 
consciousness,  breathing  with  difficult  breath — 
was  nested  in  the  self-gratulating  ignorant  pros- 
perity of  the  Cohens  ? 

Glistening  was  the  gladness  in  their  faces  when 
Deronda  re-appeared  among  them.  Cohen  him- 
self took  occasion  to  intimate  that  although  the 
diamond  ring,  let  alone  a  little  longer,  would  have 
bred  more  money,  he  did  not  mind  that — not  a 
sixpence — when  compared  with  the  pleasure  of 


the  women  and  children  in  seeing  a  young  gentle- 
man whose  first  visit  had  been  so  agreeable  that 
they  had  "  done  nothing  but  talk  of  it  ever  since." 
Young  Mrs.  Cohen  was  very  sorry  that  baby  was 
asleep,  and  then  very  glad  that  Adelaide  was  not 
yet  gone  to  bed,  entreating  Deronda  not  to  stay 
hi  the  shop,  but  to  go  forthwith  into  the  parlor 
to  see  "  mother  and  the  children."  He  willingly 
accepted  the  invitation,  having  provided  himself 
with  portable  presents ;  a  set  of  paper  figures  for 
Adelaide,  and  an  ivory  cup  and  bail  for  Jacob. 

The  grandmother  had  a  pack  of  cards  before 
her,  and  was  making  "  plates"  with  the  children. 
A  plate  had  just  been  thrown  down  and  kept  it- 
self whole. 

"Stop !"  said  Jacob,  running  up  to  Deronda  as 
he  entered.  "Don't  tread  on  my  plate.  Stop 
and  see  me  throw  it  up  again." 

Deronda  complied,  exchanging  a  smile  of  un- 
derstanding  with  the  grandmother,  and  the  plate 
bore  several  tossings  before  it  came  to  pieces ; 
then  the  visitor  was  allowed  to  come  forward  and 
seat  himself.  He  observed  that  the  door  from 
which  Mordecai  had  issued  on  the  former  visit 
was  now  closed,  but  he  wished  to  show  his  inter- 
est in  the  Cohens  before  disclosing  a  yet  stronger 
interest  in  their  singular  inmate. 

It  was  not  until  he  had  Adelaide  on  his  knee, 
and  was  setting  up  the  paper  figures  in  their 
dance  on  the  table,  while  Jacob  was  already 
practicing  with  the  cup  and  ball,  that  Deronda 
said, 

"  Is  Mordecai  in  just  now  ?" 

"  Where  is  he,  Addy  ?"  said  Cohen,  who  had 
seized  an  interval  of  business  to  come  and  look  on. 

"  In  the  work-room  there,"  said  his  wife,  nod- 
ding toward  the  closed  door. 

"  The  fact  is,  Sir,"  said  Cohen,  "  we  don't  know 
what's  come  to  him  this  last  day  or  two.  He's 
always  what  I  may  call  a  little  touched,  you 
know" — here  Cohen  pointed  to  his  own  forehead 
— "not  quite  to  say  rational  in  all  things,  like 
you  and  me ;  but  he's  mostly  wonderful  regular 
and  industrious  as  far  as  a  poor  creature  can  be, 
and  takes  as  much  delight  in  the  boy  as  any 
body  could.  But  this  last  day  or  two  he's  been 
moving  about  like  a  sleep-walker,  or  else  sitting 
as  still  as  a  wax  figure." 

"  It's  the  disease,  poor  dear  creature,"  said  the 
grandmother,  tenderly.  "  I  doubt  whether  he  can 
stand  long  against  it." 

"  No ;  I  think  it's  only  something  he's  got  in 
his  head,"  said  Mrs.  Cohen  the  younger.  "  He's 
been  turning  over  writing  continually,  and  when 
I  speak  to  him,  it  takes  him  ever  so  long  to  hear 
and  answer." 

"You  may  think  us  a  little  weak  ourselves," 
said  Cohen,  apologetically.  "But  my  wife  and 
mother  wouldn't  part  with  him  if  he  was  a  still 
worse  incumbrance.  It  isn't  that  we  don't  know 
the  long  and  short  of  matters,  but  it's  our  prin- 
ciple. There's  fools  do  business  at  a  loss  and 
don't  know  it.  I'm  not  one  of  'em." 

"  Oh,  Mordecai  carries  a  blessing  inside  him," 
said  the  grandmother. 

"  He's  got  something  the  matter  inside  him," 
said  Jacob,  coming  up  to  correct  this  erratum  of 
his  grandmother's.  "  He  said  he  couldn't  talk  to 
me,  and  he  wouldn't  have  a  bit  o'  bun." 

"So  far  from  wondering  at  your  feeling  for 
him,"  said  Deronda,  "  I  already  feel  something  of 
the  same  sort  myself.  I  have  lately  talked  to  him 


176 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


at  Ram's  book-shop — in  fact,  I  promised  to  call 
for  him  here,  that  we  might  go  out  together." 

"That's  it,  then!"  said  Cohen,  slapping  his 
knee.  "  He's  been  expecting  you,  and  it's  taken 
hold  of  him.  I  suppose  he  talks  about  his  learn- 
ing to  you.  It's  uncommonly  kind  of  you,  Sir ;  for 
I  don't  suppose  there's  much  to  be  got  out  of  it, 
else  it  wouldn't  have  left  him  where  he  is.  But 
there's  the  shop."  Cohen  hurried  out,  and  Ja- 
cob, who  had  been  listening  inconveniently  near 
to  Deronda's  elbow,  said  to  him,  with  obliging 
familiarity,  "I'll  call  Mordecai  for  you,  if  you 
like." 

"  No,  Jacob,"  said  his  mother ;  "  open  the  door 
for  the  gentleman,  and  let  him  go  in  himself. 
Hush !  Don't  make  a  noise." 

Skillful  Jacob  seemed  to  enter  into  the  play, 
and  turned  the  handle  of  the  door  as  noiselessly 
as  possible,  while  Deronda  went  behind  him  and 
stood  on  the  threshold.  The  small  room  was  lit 
only  by  a  dying  fire  and  one  candle  with  a  shade 
over  it  On  the  board  fixed  under  the  window 
various  objects  of  jewelry  were  scattered :  some 
books  were  heaped  in  the  corner  beyond  them. 
Mordecai  was  seated  on  a  high  chair  at  the  board 
with  his  back  to  the  door,  his  hands  resting  on 
each  other  and  on  the  board,  a  watch  propped  on 
a  stand  before  him.  He  was  in  a  state  of  expec- 
tation as  sickening  as  that  of  a  prisoner  listen- 
ing for  the  delayed  deliverance — when  he  heard 
Deronda's  voice  saying,  "I  am  come  for  you. 
Are  you  ready  ?" 

Immediately  he  turned  without  speaking,  seized 
his  furred  cap,  which  lay  near,  and  moved  to  join 
Deronda.  It  was  but  a  moment  before  they  were 
both  in  the  sitting-room,  and  Jacob,  noticing  the 
change  in  his  friend's  air  and  expression,  seized 
him  by  the  arm  and  said,  "  See  my  cup  and  ball !" 
sending  the  ball  up  close  to  Mordecai's  face,  as 
something  likely  to  cheer  a  convalescent.  It  was 
a  sign  of  the  relieved  tension  in  Mordecai's  mind 
that  he  could  smile  and  say,  "  Fine,  fine !" 

"  You  have  forgotten  your  great-coat  and  com- 
forter," said  young  Mrs.  Cohen,  and  he  went  back 
into  the  work-room  and  got  them. 

"  He's  come  to  life  again,  do  you  see  ?"  said 
Cohen,  who  had  re-entered — speaking  in  an  un- 
der-tone.  "I  told  you  so:  I'm  mostly  right." 
Then,  in  his  usual  voice,  "  Well,  Sir,  we  mustn't 
detain  you  now,  I  suppose ;  but  I  hope  this  isn't 
the  last  time  we  shall  see  you." 

"  Shall  you  come  again  ?"  said  Jacob,  advan- 
cing. "  See,  I  can  catch  the  ball ;  I'll  bet  I  catch 
it  without  stopping,  if  you  come  again." 

"  He  has  clever  hands,"  said  Deronda,  looking 
at  the  grandmother.  "  Which  side  of  the  family 
does  he  get  them  from  ?" 

But  the  grandmother  only  nodded  toward  her 
son,  who  said,  promptly,  "My  side.  My  wife's 
family  are  not  in  that  line.  But,  bless  your  soul ! 
ours  is  a  sort  of  cleverness  as  good  as  gutta-per- 
cha ;  you  can  twist  it  which  way  you  like.  There's 
nothing  some  old  gentlemen  won't  do  if  you  set 
'em  to  it."  Here  Cohen  winked  down  at  Jacob's 
back,  but  it  was  doubtful  whether  this  judicious 
allusiveness  answered  its  purpose,  for  its  subject 
gave  a  nasal  whinnying  laugh,  and  stamped  about, 
singing  "  Old  gentlemen,  old  gentlemen,"  hi  chim- 
ing cadence. 

Deronda  thought,  "I  shall  never  know  any 
thing  decisive  about  these  people  until  I  ask  Co- 
hen point-blank  whether  he  lost  a  sister  named 


Mirah  when  she  was  six  years  old."  The  deci- 
sive moment  did  not  yet  seem  easy  for  him  to 
face.  Still,  his  first  sense  of  repulsion  at  the 
commonness  of  these  people  was  beginning  to  be 
tempered  with  kindlier  Reeling.  However  unre- 
fined their  airs  and  speech  might  be,  he  was 
forced  to  admit  some  moral  refinement  in  their 
treatment  of  the  consumptive  workman,  whose 
mental  distinction  impressed  them  chiefly  as  a 
harmless,  silent  raving. 

"The  Cohens  seem  to  have  an  affection  for 
you,"  said  Deronda,  as  soon  as  he  and  Mordecai 
were  off  the  door-step. 

"  And  I  for  them,"  was  the  immediate  answer. 
"They  have  the  heart  of  the  Israelite  within 
them,  though  they  are  as  the  horse  and  the  mule, 
without  understanding  beyond  the  narrow  path 
they  tread." 

"  I  have  caused  you  some  uneasiness,  I  fear," 
said  Deronda,  "  by  my  slowness  in  fulfilling  my 
promise.  I  wished  to  come  yesterday,  but  I  found 
it  impossible." 

"  Yes,  yes ;  I  trusted  you.  But  it  is  true  I 
have  been  uneasy,  for  the  spirit  of  my  youth  has 
been  stirred  within  me,  and  this  body  is  not  strong 
enough  to  bear  the  beating  of  its  wings.  I  am  as 
a  man  bound  and  imprisoned  through  long  years  : 
behold  him  brought  to  speech  of  his  fellow  and 
his  limbs  set  free :  he  weeps,  he  totters,  the  joy 
within  him  threatens  to  break  and  overthrow  the 
tabernacle  of  flesh." 

"  You  must  not  speak  too  much  in  this  evening 
air,"  said  Deronda,  feeling  Mordecai's  words  of 
reliance  like  so  many  cords  binding  him  painful- 
ly. "  Cover  your  mouth  with  the  woolen  scarf. 
We  are  going  to  the  Hand  and  Banner,  I  suppose, 
and  shall  be  in  private  there  ?" 

"  No,  that  is  my  trouble  that  you  did  not  come 
yesterday.  For  this  is  the  evening  of  the  club  I 
spoke  of,  and  we  might  not  have  any  minutes 
alone  until  late,  when  all  the  rest  are  gone.  Per- 
haps we  had  better  seek  another  place.  But  I 
am  used  to  that  only.  In  new  places  the  outer 
world  presses  on  me  and  narrows  the  inward 
vision.  And  the  people  there  are  familiar  with 
my  face." 

"  I  don't  mind  the  club,  if  I  am  allowed  to  go 
in,"  said  Deronda.  "It  is  enough  that  you  like 
this  place  best.  If  we  have  not  enough  time,  I 
will  come  again.  What  sort  of  club  is  it  ?" 

"It  is  called,  'The  Philosophers.'  They  are 
few — like  the  cedars  of  Lebanon — poor  men 
given  to  thought.  But  none  so  poor  as  I  am : 
and  sometimes  visitors  of  higher  worldly  rank 
have  been  brought.  We  are  allowed  to  intro- 
duce a  friend  who  is  interested  in  our  topics. 
Each  orders  beer  or  some  other  kind  of  drink,  in 
payment  for  the  room.  Most  of  them  smoke.  I 
liave  gone  when  I  could,  for  there  are  other  men 
of  my  race  who  come,  and  sometimes  I  have 
broken  silence.  I  have  pleased  myself  with  a 
faint  likeness  between  these  poor  philosophers 
and  the  Masters  who  handed  down  the  thought 
of  our  race — the  great  Transmitters,  who  labored 
with  their  hands  for  scant  bread,  but  preserved 
and  enlarged  for  us  the  heritage  of  memory,  and 
saved  the  soul  of  Israel  alive  as  a  seed  among  the 
tombs.  The  heart  pleases  itself  with  faint  re- 
semblances." 

"I  shall  be  very  glad  to  go  and  sit  among 
them,  if  that  will  suit  you.  It  is  a  sort  of  meet- 
ing I  should  like  to  join  in,"  said  Deronda,  not 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


177 


without  relief  in  the  prospect  of  an  interval  be- 
fore he  went  through  the  strain  of  his  next  pri- 
vate conversation  with  Mordecai. 

In  three  minutes  they  had  opened  the  glazed 
door  with  the  red  curtain,  and  were  in  the  little 
parlor,  hardly  much  more  than  fifteen  feet  square, 
where  the  gas-light  shone  through  a  slight  haze 
of  smoke  on  what  to  Deronda  was  a  new  and 
striking  scene.  Half  a  dozen  men  of  various 
ages,  from  between  twenty  and  thirty  to  fifty, 
all  shabbily  dressed,  most  of  them  with  clay  pipes 
in  their  mouths,  were  listening  with  a  look  of  con- 
centrated intelligence  to  a  man  in  a  pepper-and- 
salt  dress,  with  blonde  hair,  short  nose,  broad 
forehead,  and  general  breadth,  who,  holding  his 
pipe  slightly  uplifted  in  the  left  hand,  and  beat- 
ing his  knee  with  the  right,  was  just  finishing  a 
quotation  from  Shelley  (the  comparison  of  the 
avalanche  in  his  "  Prometheus  Unbound") — 

"  As  thought  by  thought  Is  piled,  till  some  great  truth 
Is  loosened,  and  the  nations  echo  round." 

The  entrance  of  the  new-comers  broke  the  fix- 
ity of  attention,  and  called  for  a  re-arrangement 
of  seats  in  the  too  narrow  semicircle  round  the 
fire-place  and  the  table  holding  the  glasses,  spare 
pipes,  and  tobacco.  This  was  the  soberest  of 
clubs ;  but  sobriety  is  no  reason  why  smoking 
and  "  taking  something"  should  be  less  imperi- 
ously needed  as  a  means  of  getting  a  decent  stat- 
us in  company  and  debate.  Mordecai  was  received 
with  welcoming  voices  which  had  a  slight  cadence 
of  compassion  in  them,  but  naturally  all  glances 
passed  immediately  to  his  companion. 

"  I  have  brought  a  friend  who  is  interested  in 
our  subjects,"  said  Mordecai.  "  He  has  traveled 
and  studied  much." 

"  Is  the  gentleman  anonymous  ?  Is  he  a  Great 
Unknown?"  said  the  broad-chested  quoter  of 
Shelley,  with  a  humorous  air. 

"  My  name  is  Daniel  Deronda.  I  am  unknown, 
but  not  in  any  sense  great."  The  smile  break- 
ing over  the  stranger's  grave  face  as  he  said  this 
was  so  agreeable  that  there  was  a  general  indis- 
tinct murmur,  equivalent  to  a  "  Hear,  hear,"  and 
the  broad  man  said, 

"  You  recommend  the  name,  Sir,  and  are  wel- 
come. Here,  Mordecai,  come  to  this  corner 
against  me,"  he  added,  evidently  wishing  to  give 
the  coziest  place  to  the  one  who  most  needed  it. 

Deronda  was  well  satisfied  to  get  a  seat  on  the 
opposite  side,  where  his  general  survey  of  the  par- 
ty easily  included  Mordecai,  who  remained  an  emi- 
nently striking  object  in  this  group  of  sharply 
characterized  figures,  more  than  one  of  whom,  even 
to  Daniel's  little  exercised  discrimination,  seemed 
probably  of  Jewish  descent. 

In  fact,  pure  English  blood  (if  leech  or  lancet 
can  furnish  us  with  the  precise  product)  did  not 
declare  itself  predominantly  in  the  party  at  pres- 
ent assembled.  Miller,  the  broad  man,  an  excep- 
tional second-hand  bookseller  who  knew  the  in- 
sides  of  books,  had  at  least  grandparents  who 
called  themselves  German,  and  possibly  far-away 
ancestors  who  denied  themselves  to  be  Jews; 
Buchan,  the  saddler,  was  Scotch ;  Pash,  the  watch- 
maker, was  a  small,  dark,  vivacious,  triple-baked 
Jew ;  Gideon,  the  optical  instrument  maker,  was 
a  Jew  of  the  red-haired,  generous-featured  type 
easily  passing  for  Englishmen  of  unusually  cor- 
dial manners;  and  Croop,  the  dark-eyed  shoe- 
maker, was  probably  more  Celtic  than  he  knew. 


Only  three  would  have  been  discernible  every 
where  as  Englishmen :  the  wood  inlayer  Goodwin, 
well  built,  open-faced,  pleasant-voiced ;  the  florid 
laboratory  assistant  Marrables ;  and  Lilly,  the 
pale,  neat-faced  copying  clerk,  whose  light  brown 
hair  was  set  up  in  a  small  parallelogram  above 
his  well-filled  forehead,  and  whose  shirt,  taken 
with  an  otherwise  seedy  costume,  had  a  fresh- 
ness that  might  be  called  insular,  and  perhaps 
even  something  narrower. 

Certainly  a  company  select  of  the  select  among 
poor  men,  being  drawn  together  by  a  taste  not 
prevalent  even  among  the  privileged  heirs  of  learn- 
ing and  its  institutions ;  and  not  likely  to  amuse 
any  gentleman  in  search  of  crime  or  low  comedy 
as  the  ground  of  interest  in  people  whose  weekly 
income  is  only  divisible  into  shillings.  Deronda, 
even  if  he  had  not  been  more  than  usually  in- 
clined to  gravity  under  the  influence  of  what  was 
pending  between  him  and  Mordecai,  would  not 
have  set  himself  to  find  food  for  laughter  in  the 
various  shades  of  departure  from  the  tone  of  pol- 
ished society  sure  to  be  observable  in  the  air  and 
talk  of  these  men  who  had  probably  snatched 
knowledge  as  most  of  us  snatch  indulgences,  mak- 
ing the  utmost  of  scant  opportunity.  He  looked 
around  him  with  the  quiet  air  of  respect  habitual 
to  him  among  equals,  ordered  whiskey  and  water, 
and  offered  the  contents  of  his  cigar-case,  which, 
characteristically  enough,  he  always  carried  and 
hardly  ever  used  for  his  own  behoof,  having  rea- 
sons for  not  smoking  himself,  but  liking  to  in- 
dulge others.  Perhaps  it  was  his  weakness  to  be 
afraid  of  seeming  strait-laced,  and  turning  him- 
self into  a  sort  of  diagram  instead  of  a  growth 
which  can  exercise  the  guiding  attraction  of  fel- 
lowship. That  he  made  a  decidedly  winning  im- 
pression on  the  company  was  proved  by  their 
showing  themselves  no  less  at  ease  than  before, 
and  desirous  of  quickly  resuming  their  interrupt- 
ed talk. 

"This  is  what  I  call  one  of  our  touch-and-go 
nights,  Sir,"  said  Miller — who  was  implicitly  ac- 
cepted as  a  sort  of  moderator — addressing  De- 
ronda by  way  of  explanation,  and  nodding  toward 
each  person  whose  name  he  mentioned.  "  Some- 
times we  stick  pretty  close  to  the  point.  But  to- 
night our  friend  Pash,  there,  brought  up  the  law 
of  progress,  and  we  got  on  statistics ;  then  Lilly, 
there,  saying  we  knew  well  enough  before  count- 
ing that  in  the  same  state  of  society  the  same 
sort  of  things  would  happen,  and  it  was  no  more 
wonder  that  quantities  should  remain  the  same 
than  that  qualities  should  remain  the  same,  for 
in  relation  to  society  numbers  are  qualities — the 
number  of  drunkards  is  a  quality  in  society — the 
numbers  are  an  index  to  the  qualities,  and  give 
us  no  instruction,  only  setting  us  to  consider  the 
causes  of  difference  between  different  social  states 
— Lilly  saying  this,  we  went  off  on  the  causes  of 
social  change,  and  when  you  came  in  I  was  going 
upon  the  power  of  ideas,  which  I  hold  to  be  the 
main  transforming  cause." 

"I  don't  hold  with  you  there,  Miller,"  said 
Goodwin,  the  inlayer,  more  concerned  to  carry 
on  the  subject  than  to  wait  for  a  word  from  the 
new  guest.  "  For  either  you  mean  so  many  sorts 
of  things  by  ideas  that  I  get  no  knowledge  by 
what  you  say,  any  more  than  if  you  said  light 
was  a  cause ;  or  else  you  mean  a  particular  sort 
of  ideas,  and  then  I  go  against  your  meaning  as 
too  narrow.  For,  look  at  it  in  one  way,  all  ac- 


178 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


tions  men  put  a  bit  of  thought  into  are  ideas — 
say,  sowing  seed,  or  making  a  canoe,  or  baking 
clay ;  and  such  ideas  as  these  work  themselves 
into  life  and  go  on  growing  with  it,  but  they  can't 
go  apart  from  the  material  that  set  them  to  work 
and  makes  a  medium  for  them.  It's  the  nature 
of  wood  and  stone  yielding  to  the  knife  that  raises 
the  idea  of  shaping  them,  and  with  plenty  of  wood 
and  stone  the  shaping  will  go  on.  I  look  at  it 
that  such  ideas  as  are  mixed  straight  away  with 
all  the  other  elements  of  life  are  powerful  along 
with  'em.  The  slower  the  mixing,  the  less  power 
they  have.  And  as  to  the  causes  of  social  change, 
I  look  at  it  in  this  way— ideas  are  a  sort  of  par- 
liament, but  there's  a  commonwealth  outside,  and 
a  good  deal  of  the  commonwealth  is  working  at 
change  without  knowing  what  the  parliament  is 
doing." 

"  But  if  you  take  ready  mixing  as  your  test  of 
power,"  said  Pash, "  some  of  the  least  practical 
ideas  beat  every  thing.  They  spread  without  be- 
ing understood,  and  enter  into  the  language  with- 
out being  thought  of." 

"They  may  act  by  changing  the  distribution 
of  gases,"  said  Marrables ;  "  instruments  are  get- 
ting so  fine  now,  men  may  come  to  register  the 
spread  of  a  theory  by  observed  changes  in  the 
atmosphere  and  corresponding  changes  in  the 
nerves." 

"Yes,"  said  Pash,  his  dark  face  lighting  up 
rather  impishly,  "there  is  the  idea  of  nationali- 
ties ;  I  dare  say  the  wild  asses  are  snuffing  it,  and 
getting  more  gregarious." 

"You  don't  share  that  idea?"  said  Deronda, 
finding  a  piquant  incongruity  between  Pash's 
sarcasm  and  the  strong  stamp  of  race  on  his 
features. 

"  Say,  rather,  he  does  not  share  that  spirit,"  said 
Mordecai,  who  had  turned  a  melancholy  glance  on 
Pash.  "  Unless  nationality  is  a  feeling,  what  force 
can  it  have  as  an  idea  ?" 

"Granted,  Mordecai,"  said  Pash,  quite  good- 
humoredly.  "  And  as  the  feeling  of  nationality 
is  dying,  I  take  the  idea  to  be  no  better  than  a 
ghost,  already  walking  to  announce  the  death." 

"A  sentiment  may  seem  to  be  dying  and  yet 
revive  into  strong  life,"  said  Deronda.  "  Nations 
have  revived.  We  may  live  to  see  a  great  out- 
burst of  force  in  the  Arabs,  who  are  being  inspired 
with  a  new  zeal." 

"  Amen,  amen,"  said  Mordecai,  looking  at  De- 
ronda with  a  delight  which  was  the  beginning  of 
recovered  energy :  his  attitude  was  more  upright, 
his  face  was  less  worn. 

"  That  may  hold  with  backward  nations,"  said 
Pash,  "  but  with  us  in  Europe  the  sentiment  of 
nationality  is  destined  to  die  out.  It  will  last  a 
little  longer  in  the  quarters  where  oppression  lasts, 
but  nowhere  else.  The  whole  current  of  progress 
is  setting  against  it." 

"Ay,"  said  Buchan,  in  a  rapid  thin  Scotch  tone 
which  was  like  the  letting  in  of  a  little  cool  air  on 
the  conversation,  "ye've  done  well  to  bring  us 
round  to  the  point.  Ye're  all  agreed  that  socie- 
ties change — not  always  and  every  where — but  on 
the  whole  and  in  the  long-run.  Now,  with  all 
deference,  I  would  beg  t'observe  that  we  have  got 
to  examine  the  nature  of  changes  before  we  have 
a  warrant  to  call  them  progress,  which  word  is 
supposed  to  include  a  bettering,  though  I  appre- 
hend it  to  be  ill  chosen  for  that  purpose,  since 
mere  motion  onward  may  carry  us  to  a  bog  or 


a  precipice.  And  the  questions  I  would  put  are 
three :  Is  all  change  in  the  direction  of  progress  ? 
if  not,  how  shall  we  discern  which  change  is  prog- 
ress and  which  not  ?  and  thirdly,  how  far  and  in 
what  ways  can  we  act  upon  the  course  of  change 
so  as  to  promote  it  where  it  is  beneficial,  and  di- 
vert it  where  it  is  injurious  ?" 

But  Buchan's  attempt  to  impose  his  method  on 
the  talk  was  a  failure.  Lilly  immediately  said, 

"  Change  and  progress  are  merged  in  the  idea 
of  development.  The  laws  of  development  are 
being  discovered,  and  changes  taking  place  ac- 
cording to  them  are  necessarily  progressive ;  that 
is  to  say,  if  we  have  any  notion  of  progress  or 
improvement  opposed  to  them,  the  notion  is  a 
mistake." 

"  I  really  can't  see  how  you  arrive  at  that  sort 
of  certitude  about  changes  by  calling  them  de- 
velopment," said  Deronda.  "  There  will  still  re- 
main the  degrees  of  inevitableness  in  relation  to 
our  own  will  and  acts,  and  the  degrees  of  wisdom 
in  hastening  or  retarding ;  there  will  still  remain 
the  danger  of  mistaking  a  tendency  which  should 
be  resisted  for  an  inevitable  law  that  we  must 
adjust  ourselves  to — which  seems  to  me  as  bad  a 
superstition  or  false  god  as  any  that  has  been  set 
up  without  the  ceremonies  of  philosophizing." 

"  That  is  a  truth,"  said  Mordecai.  "  Woe  to  the 
men  who  see  no  place  for  resistance  in  this  gen- 
eration !  I  believe  in  a  growth,  a  passage,  and  a 
new  unfolding  of  life  whereof  the  seed  is  more 
perfect,  more  charged  with  the  elements  that  are 
pregnant  with  diviner  form.  The  life  of  a  people 
grows,  it  is  knit  together  and  yet  expanded,  in  joy 
and  sorrow,  in  thought  and  action ;  it  absorbs  the 
thought  of  other  nations  into  its  own  forms,  and 
gives  back  the  thought  as  new  wealth  to  the 
world;  it  is  a  power  and  an  organ  in  the  great 
body  of  the  nations.  But  there  may  come  a  check, 
an  arrest ;  memories  may  be  stifled,  and  love  may 
be  faint  for  the  lack  of  them ;  or  memories  may 
shrink  into  withered  relics — the  soul  of  a  people, 
whereby  they  know  themselves  to  be  one,  may 
seem  to  be  dying  for  want  of  common  action. 
But  who  shall  say,  '  The  fountain  of  their  life  is 
dried  up,  they  shall  forever  cease  to  be  a  nation  ?' 
Who  shall  say  it  ?  Not  he  who  feels  the  life  of 
his  people  stirring  within  his  own.  Shall  he  say, 
'  That  way  events  are  wending,  I  will  not  resist  ?' 
His  very  soul  is  resistance,  and  is  as  a  seed  of  fire 
that  may  enkindle  the  souls  of  multitudes,  and 
make  a  new  pathway  for  events." 

"I  don't  deny  patriotism,"  said  Gideon,  "but 
we  all  know  you  have  a  particular  meaning,  Mor- 
decai. You  know  Mordecai's  way  of  thinking,  I 
suppose."  Here  Gideon  had  turned  to  Deronda, 
who  sat  next  to  him  ;  but  without  waiting  for  an 
answer,  he  went  on  :  "  I'm  a  rational  Jew  myself. 
I  stand  by  my  people  as  a  sort  of  family  relations, 
and  I  am  for  keeping  up  our  worship  in  a  rational 
way.  I  don't  approve  of  our  people  getting  bap- 
tized, because  I  don't  believe  in  a  Jew's  conversion 
to  the  Gentile  part  of  Christianity.  And  now  we 
have  political  equality,  there's  no  excuse  for  a  pre- 
tense of  that  sort.  But  I  am  for  getting  rid  of 
all  our  superstitions  and  exclusiveness.  There's 
no  reason  now  why  we  shouldn't  melt  gradually 
into  the  populations  we  live  among.  That's  the 
order  of  the  day  in  point  of  progress.  I  would 
as  soon  my  children  married  Christians  as  Jews. 
And  I'm  for  the  old  maxim, '  A  man's  country  ia 
where  he's  well  off.' " 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


179 


"  That  country's  not  so  easy  to  find,  Gideon,"' 
said  the  rapid  Pash,  with  a  shrug  and  grimace. 
"  You  get  ten  shillings  a  week  more  than  I  do, 
and  have  only  half  the  number  of  children.  If 
somebody  will  introduce  a  brisk  trade  in  watches 
among  the  '  Jerusalem  wares,'  I'll  go — eh,  Morde- 
cai,  what  do  you  say  ?" 

Deronda,  all  ear  for  these  hints  of  Mordecai's 
opinion,  was  inwardly  wondering  at  his  persist- 
ence in  coining  to  this  club.  For  an  enthusiastic 
spirit  to  meet  continually  the  fixed  indifference  of 
men  familiar  with  the  object  of  his  enthusiasm  is 
the  acceptance  of  a  slow  martyrdom,  beside  which 
the  fate  of  a  missionary  tomahawked  without  any 
considerate  rejection  of  his  doctrines  seems  hard- 
ly worthy  of  compassion.  But  Mordecai  gave  no 
sign  of  shrinking :  this  was  a  moment  of  spiritual 
fullness,  and  he  cared  more  for  the  utterance  of  his 
faith  than  for  its  immediate  reception.  With  a 
fervor  which  had  no  temper  in  it,  but  seemed 
rather  the  rush  of  feeling  in  the  opportunity  of 
speech,  he  answered  Pash : 

"  What  I  say  is,  let  every  man  keep  far  away 
from  the  brotherhood  and  the  inheritance  he  de- 
spises. Thousands  on  thousands  of  our  race  have 
mixed  with  the  Gentile  as  Celt  with  Saxon,  and 
they  may  inherit  the  blessing  that  belongs  to  the 
Gentile.  You  can  not  follow  them.  You  are  one 
of  the  multitudes  over  this  globe  who  must  walk 
among  the  nations  and  be  known  as  Jews,  and 
with  words  on  their  lips  which  mean, '  I  wish  I 
had  not  been  born  a  Jew,  I  disown  any  bond  with 
the  long  travail  of  my  race,  I  will  outdo  the  Gen- 
tile in  mocking  at  our  separateness,'  they  all  the 
while  feel  breathing  on  them  the  breath  of  con- 
tempt because  they  are  Jews,  and  they  will  breathe 
it  back  poisonously.  Can  a  fresh-made  garment 
of  citizenship  weave  itself  straightway  into  the 
flesh  and  change  the  slow  deposit  of  eighteen 
centuries  ?  What  is  the  citizenship  of  him  who 
walks  among  a  people  he  has  no  hearty  kindred 
and  fellowship  with,  and  has  lost  the  sense  of 
brotherhood  with  his  own  race  ?  It  is  a  charter 
of  selfish  ambition  and  rivalry  in  low  greed.  He 
is  an  alien  in  spirit,  whatever  he  may  be  in  form ; 
he  sucks  the  blood  of  mankind ;  he  is  not  a  man. 
Sharing  in  no  love,  sharing  in  no  subjection  of 
the  soul,  he  mocks  at  all.  Is  it  not  truth  I  speak, 
Pash  ?" 

"  Not  exactly,  Mordecai,"  said  Pash,  "  if  you 
mean  that  I  think  the  worse  of  myself  for  being 
a  Jew.  What  I  thank  our  fathers  for  is  that 
there  are  fewer  blockheads  among  us  than  among 
other  races.  But  perhaps  you  are  right  in  think- 
ing the  Christians  don't  like  me  so  well  for  it." 

"  Catholics  and  Protestants  have  not  liked  each 
other  much  better,"  said  the  genial  Gideon.  "  We 
must  wait  patiently  for  prejudices  to  die  out. 
Many  of  our  people  are  on  a  footing  with  the 
best,  and  there's  been  a  good  filtering  of  our 
blood  into  high  families.  I  am  for  making  our 
expectations  rational." 

"  And  so  am  I !"  said  Mordecai,  quickly,  lean- 
ing forward  with  the  eagerness  of  one  who  pleads 
in  some  decisive  crisis,  his  long  thin  hands  clasped 
together  on  his  lap,  "  I  too  claim  to  be  a  ration- 
al Jew.  But  what  is  it  to  be  rational — what  is 
it  to  feel  the  light  of  the  divine  reason  growing 
stronger  within  and  without  ?  It  is  to  see  more 
and  more  of  the  hidden  bonds  that  bind  and  con- 
secrate change  as  a  dependent  growth — yea,  con- 
secrate it  with  kinship;  the  past  becomes  my 


parent,  and  the  future  stretches  toward  me  the 
appealing  arms  of  children.  Is  it  rational  to 
drain  away  the  sap  of  special  kindred  that  makes 
the  families  of  man  rich  in  interchanged  wealth, 
and  various  as  the  forests  are  various  with  the 
glory  of  the  cedar  and  the  palm?  When  it  is 
rational  to  say, '  I  know  not  my  father  or  my  moth- 
er, let  my  children  be  aliens  to  me,  that  no  prayer 
of  mine  may  touch  them,'  then  it  will  be  ration- 
al for  the  Jew  to  say,  'I  will  seek  to  know  no 
difference  between  me  and  the  Gentile,  I  will  not 
cherish  the  prophetic  consciousness  of  our  nation- 
ality— let  the  Hebrew  cease  to  be,  and  let  all  his 
memorials  be  antiquarian  trifles,  dead  as  the  wall- 
paintings  of  a  conjectured  race.  Yet  let  his  child 
learn  by  rote  the  speech  of  the  Greek,  where  he 
adjures  his  fellow-citizens  by  the  bravery  of  those 
who  fought  foremost  at  Marathon — let  him  learn 
to  say,  that  was  noble  in  the  Greek,  that  is  the 
spirit  of  an  immortal  nation !  But  the  Jew  has 
no  memories  that  bind  him  to  action;  let  him 
laugh  that  his  nation  is  degraded  from  a  nation ; 
let  him  hold  the  monuments  of  his  law  which 
carried  within  its  frame  the  breath  of  social  jus- 
tice, of  charity,  and  of  household  sanctities — let 
him  hold  the  energy  of  the  prophets,  the  patient 
care  of  the  Masters,  the  fortitude  of  martyred 
generations,  as  mere  stuff  for  a  professorship. 
The  business  of  the  Jew  in  all  things  is  to  be 
even  as  the  rich  Gentile.' " 

Mordecai  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair,  and 
there  was  a  moment's  silence.  Not  one  member 
of  the  club  shared  his  point  of  view  or  his  emo- 
tion ;  but  his  whole  personality  and  speech  had 
on  them  the  effect  of  a  dramatic  representation 
which  had  some  pathos  in  it,  though  no  practical 
consequences;  and  usually  he  was  at  once  in- 
dulged and  contradicted.  Deronda's  mind  went 
back  on  what  must  have  been  the  tragic  pressure 
of  outward  conditions  hindering  this  man,  whose 
force  he  felt  to  be  telling  on  himself,  from  mak- 
ing any  world  for  his  thought  in  the  minds  of 
others — like  a  poet  among  people  of  a  strange 
speech,  who  may  have  a  poetry  of  their  own,  but 
have  no  ear  for  his  cadence,  no  answering  thrill 
to  his  discovery  of  latent  virtues  in  his  mother- 
tongue. 

The  cool  Buchan  was  the  first  to  speak,  and 
hint  the  loss  of  time.  "  I  submit,"  said  he,  "  that 
ye're  traveling  away  from  the  questions  I  put  con- 
cerning progress." 

"Say  they're  levanting,  Buchanf"  said  Miller, 
who  liked  his  joke,  and  would  not  have  objected 
to  be  called  Voltairian.  "  Never  mind.  Let  us 
have  a  Jewish  night ;  we've  not  had  one  for  a 
long  while.  Let  us  take  the  discussion  on  Jew- 
ish ground.  I  suppose  we've  no  prejudice  here ; 
we're  all  philosophers ;  and  we  like  our  friends 
Mordecai,  Pash,  and  Gideon  as  well  as  if  they 
were  no  more  kin  to  Abraham  than  the  rest  of  us. 
We're  all  related  through  Adam,  until  further 
showing  to  the  contrary ;  and  if  you  look  into  his- 
tory, we've  all  got  some  discreditable  forefathers. 
So  I  mean  no  offense  when  I  say  I  don't  think  any 
great  things  of  the  part  the  Jewish  people  have 
played  in  the  world.  What  then  ?  I  think  they 
were  iniquitously  dealt  by  in  past  times.  And  I 
suppose  we  don't  want  any  men  to  be  maltreated, 
white,  black,  brown,  or  yellow  ;  I  know  I've  just 
given  my  half  crown  to  the  contrary.  And  that 
reminds  me,  I've  a  curious  old  German  book — I 
can't  read  it  myself,  but  a  friend  was  reading  out 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


of  it  to  me  the  other  day — about  the  prejudices 
against  the  Jews,  and  the  stories  used  to  be  told 
against  'em,  and  what  do  you  think  one  was  ? 
Why,  that  they're  punished  with  a  bad  odor  in 
their  bodies ;  and  that,  says  the  author,  date  1715 
(I've  just  been  pricing  and  marking  the  book  this 
very  morning) — that  is  true,  for  the  ancients  spoke 
of  it.  But  then,  he  says,  the  other  things  are  fa- 
bles, such  as  that  the  odor  goes  away  all  at  once 
when  they're  baptized,  and  that  every  one  of  the 
ten  tribes — mind  you,  all  the  ten  being  concerned 
in  the  crucifixion — has  got  a  particular  punish- 
ment over  and  above  the  smell :  Asher,  I  remem- 
ber, has  the  right  arm  a  hand-breadth  shorter 
than  the  left,  and  Naphthali  has  pigs'  ears  and  a 
smell  of  live  pork.  What  do  you  think  of  that  ? 
There's  been  a  good  deal  of  fun  made  of  rabbin- 
ical fables,  but  in  point  of  fables  my  opinion  is 
that  all  over  the  world  it's  six  of  one  and  half  a 
dozen  of  the  other.  However,  as  I  said  before,  I 
hold  with  the  philosophers  of  the  last  century  that 
the  Jews  have  played  no  great  part  as  a  people, 
though  Pash  will  have  it  they're  clever  enough  to 
beat  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  But  if  so,  I  ask, 
why  haven't  they  done  it  ?" 

"  For  the  same  reason  that  the  cleverest  men 
in  the  country  don't  get  themselves  or  their  ideas 
into,  Parliament,"  said  the  ready  Pash ;  "  because 
the  blockheads  are  too  many  for  'em." 

"That  is  a  vain  question,"  said  Mordecai, 
"  whether  our  people  would  beat  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Each  nation  has  its  own  work,  and  is  a 
member  of  the  world,  enriched  by  the  work  of 
each.  But  it  is  true,  as  Jehuda  ha-Levi  first  said, 
that  Israel  is  the  heart  of  mankind,  if  we  mean 
by  heart  the  core  of  affection  which  binds  a  race 
and  its  families  in  dutiful  love,  and  the  rever- 
ence for  the  human  body  which  lifts  the  needs 
of  our  animal  life  into  religion,  and  the  tender- 
ness which  is  merciful  to  the  poor  and  weak  and 
to  the  dumb  creature  that  wears  the  yoke  for 
us." 

"  They're  not  behind  any  nation  in  arrogance," 
said  Lilly ;  "  and  if  they  have  got  in  the  rear,  it 
has  not  been  because  they  were  overmodest." 

"  Oh,  every  nation  brags  m  its  turn,"  said  Mil- 
ler. 

"  Yes,"  said  Pash,  "  and  some  of  them  in  the 
Hebrew  text." 

"Well,  whatever  the  Jews  contributed  at  one 
time,  they  are  a  stand -still  people,"  said  Lilly. 
"They  are  th«  type  of  obstinate  adherence  to 
the  superannuated.  They  may  show  good  abili- 
ties when  they  take  up  liberal  ideas,  but  as  a  race 
they  have  no  development  in  them." 

"That  is  false!"  said  Mordecai,  leaning  for- 
ward again  with  his  former  eagerness.  "Let 
their  history  be  known  and  examined;  let  the 
seed  be  sifted,  let  its  beginning  be  traced  to  the 
weed  of  the  wilderness— the  more  glorious  will 
be  the  energy  that  transformed  it.  Where  else 
is  there  a  nation  of  whom  it  may  be  as  truly  said 
that  their  religion  and  law  and  moral  life  mingled 
as  the  stream  of  blood  in  the  heart  and  made 
one  growth — where  else  a  people  who  kept  and 
enlarged  their  spiritual  store  at  the  very  time 
when  they  were  hunted  with  a  hatred  as  fierce 
as  the  forest  fires  that  chase  the  wild  beast  from 
his  covert  ?  There  is  a  fable  of  the  Roman  that, 
swimming  to  save  his  life,  he  held  the  roll  of  his 
writings  between  bis  teeth  and  saved  them  from 
the  waters.  But  how  much  more  than  that 


is  true  of  our  race?  They  struggled  to  keep 
their  place  among  the  nations  like  heroes — yea, 
when  the  hand  was  hacked  off,  they  clung  with 
the  teeth;  but  when  the  plow  and  the  harrow 
had  passed  over  the  last  visible  signs  of  their 
national  covenant,  and  the  fruitfulness  of  their 
land  was  stifled  with  the  blood  of  the  sowers  and 
planters,  they  said, '  The  spirit  is  alive,  let  us  make 
it  a  lasting  habitation — lasting  because  movable 
— so  that  it  may  be  carried  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  our  sons  unborn  may  be  rich  in 
the  things  that  have  been,  and  possess  a  hope 
built  on  an  unchangeable  foundation.'  They  said 
it  and  they  wrought  it,  though  often  breathing 
with  scant  life,  as  in  a  coffin,  or  as  lying  wounded 
amidst  a  heap  of  slain.  Hooted  and  scared  like 
the  unowned  dog,  the  Hebrew  made  himself  en- 
vied for  his  wealth  and  wisdom,  and  was  bled  of 
them  to  fill  the  bath  of  Gentile  luxury;  he  ab- 
sorbed knowledge,  he  diffused  it;  his  dispersed 
race  was  a  new  Phoenicia  working  the  mines  of 
Greece  and  carrying  their  products  to  the  world. 
The  native  spirit  of  our  tradition  was  not  to  stand 
still,  but  to  use  records  as  a  seed,  and  draw  out 
the  compressed  virtues  of  law  and  prophecy ;  and 
while  the  Gentile,  who  had  said, '  What  is  yours 
is  ours,  and  no  longer  yours,'  was  reading  the  let- 
ter of  our  law  as  a  dark  inscription,  or  was  turn- 
ing its  parchments  into  shoe  soles  for  an  army 
rabid  with  lust  and  cruelty,  our  Masters  were  still 
enlarging  and  illuminating  with  fresh-fed  inter- 
pretation. But  the  dispersion  was  wide,  the  yoke 
of  oppression  was  a  spiked  torture  as  well  as  a 
load ;  the  exile  was  forced  afar  ampng  brutish 
people,  where  the  consciousness  of  his  race  was 
no  clearer  to  him  than  the  light  of  the  sun  to  our 
fathers  in  the  Roman  persecution,  who  had  their 
hiding-place  in  a  cave,  and  knew  not  that  it  was 
day  save  by  the  dimmer  burning  of  their  candles. 
What  wonder  that  multitudes  of  our  people  are 
ignorant,  narrow,  superstitious  ?  What  wonder  ?" 

Here  Mordecai,  whose  seat  was  next  the  fire- 
place, rose  and  leaned  his  arm  on  the  little  shelf ; 
his  excitement  had  risen,  though  his  voice,  which 
had  begun  with  unusual  strength,  was  getting 
hoarser. 

"  What  wonder  ?  The  night  is  unto  them,  that 
they  have  no  vision ;  in  their  darkness  they  are 
unable  to  divine ;  the  sun  is  gone  down  over  the 
prophets,  and  the  day  is  dark  above  them ;  their 
observances  are  as  nameless  relics.  But  which 
among  the  chief  of  the  Gentile  nations  has  not  an 
ignorant  multitude?  They  scorn  our  people's 
ignorant  observance ;  but  the  most  accursed  ig- 
norance is  that  which  has  no  observance — sunk  to 
the  cunning  greed  of  the  fox,  to  which  all  law  is 
no  more  than  a  trap  or  the  cry  of  the  worrying 
hound.  There  is  a  degradation  deep  down  below 
the  memory  that  has  withered  into  superstition. 
In  the  multitudes  of  the  ignorant  on  three  conti- 
nents who  observe  our  rites  and  make  the  con- 
fession of  the  divine  Unity,  the  soul  of  Judaism 
is  not  dead.  Revive  the  organic  centre :  let  the 
unity  of  Israel  which  has  made  the  growth  and 
form  of  its  religion  be  an  outward  reality.  Look- 
ing toward  a  land  and  a  polity,  our  dispersed 
people  in  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  may  share  the 
dignity  of  a  national  life  which  has  a  voice  among 
the  peoples  of  the  East  and  the  West— which 
will  plant  the  wisdom  and  skill  of  our  race  so 
that  it  may  be,  as  of  old,  a  medium  of  transmis- 
sion arid  understanding.  Let  that  come  to  pass, 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


181 


and  the  living  warmth  will  spread  to  the  weak 
extremities  of  Israel,  and  superstition  will  van- 
ish, not  in  the  lawlessness  of  the  renegade,  but 
in  the  illumination  of  great  facts  which  widen 
feeling,  and  make  all  knowledge  alive  as  the 
young  offspring  of  beloved  memories." 

Mordecai's  voice  had  sunk,  but,  with  the  hectic 
brilliancy  of  his  gaze,  it  was  not  the  less  impress- 
ive. His  extraordinary  excitement  was  certainly 
due  to  Deronda's  presence:  it  was  to  Deronda 
that  he  was  speaking,  and  the  moment  had  a 
testamentary  solemnity  for  him  which  rallied  all 
his  powers.  Yet  the  presence  of  those  other  fa- 
miliar men  promoted  expression,  for  they  em- 
bodied the  indifference  which  gave  a  resistant 
energy  to  his  speech.  Not  that  he  looked  at  De- 
ronda: he  seemed  to  see  nothing  immediately 
around  him,  and  if  any  one  had  grasped  him  he 
would  probably  not  have  known  it.  Again  the 
former  words  came  back  to  Deronda's  mind : 
"  You  must  hope  my  hopes — see  the  vision  I 
point  to — behold  a  glory  where  I  behold  it." 
They  came  now  with  gathered  pathos.  Before 
him  stood,  as  a  living,  suffering  reality,  what 
hitherto  he  had  only  seen  as  an  effort  of  imag- 
ination, which,  in  its  comparative  faintness,  yet 
carried  a  suspicion  of  being  exaggerated :  a  man 
steeped  in  poverty  and  obscurity,  weakened  by 
disease,  consciously  within  the  shadow  of  advan- 
cing death,  but  living  an  intense  life  in  an  invisi- 
ble past  and  future,  careless  of  his  personal  lot, 
except  for'  its  possibly  making  some  obstruction 
to  a  conceived  good  which  he  would  never  share 
except  as  a  brief  inward  vision — a  day  afar  off, 
whose  sun  would  never  warm  him,  but  into  which 
he  threw  his  soul's  desire  with  a  passion  often 
wanting  to  the  personal  motives  of  healthy  youth. 
It  was  something  more  than  a  grandiose  transfig- 
uration of  the  parental  love  that  toils,  renounces, 
endures,  resists,  the  suicidal  promptings  of  despair 
— all  because  of  the  little  ones,  whose  future  be- 
comes present  to  the  yearning  gaze  of  anxiety. 

All  eyes  were  fixed  on  Mordecai  as  he  sat  down 
again,  and  none  with  unkindness ;  but  it  happen- 
ed that  the  one  who  felt  the  most  kindly  was  the 
most  prompted  to  speak  in  opposition.  This  was 
the  genial  and  rational  Gideon,  who  also  was  not 
without  a  sense  that  he  was  addressing  the  guest 
of  the  evening.  He  said  : 

"  You  have  your  own  way  of  looking  at  things, 
Mordecai,  and,  as  you  say,  your  own  way  seems  to 
you  rational.  I  know  you  don't  hold  with  the 
restoration  to  Judaea  by  miracle,  and  so  on ;  but 
you  are  as  well  aware  as  I  am  that  the  subject 
has  been  mixed  with  a  heap  of  nonsense  both 
by  Jews  and  Christians.  And  as  to  the  connec- 
tion of  our  race  with  Palestine,  it  has  been  per- 
verted by  superstition  till  it's  as  demoralizing  as 
the  old  poor-law.  The  raff  and  scum  go  there  to 
be  maintained  like  able-bodied  paupers,  and  to  be 
taken  special  care  of  by  the  angel  Gabriel  when 
they  die.  It's  no  use  fighting  against  facts.  We 
must  look  where  they  point ;  that's  what  I  call 
rationality.  The  most  learned  and  liberal  men 
among  us  who  are  attached  to  our  religion  are 
for  clearing  our  liturgy  of  all  such  notions  as  a 
literal  fulfillment  of  the  prophecies  about  restora- 
tion, and  so  on.  Prune  it  of  a  few  useless  rites 
and  literal  interpretations  of  that  sort,  and  our  re- 
ligion is  the  simplest  of  all  religions,  and  makes 
no  barrier,  but  a  union,  between  us  and  the  rest 
of  the  world." 


"As  plain  as  a  pike-staff,"  said  Pash,  with  an 
ironical  laugh.  "  You  pluck  it  up  by  the  roots, 
strip  off  the  leaves  and  bark,  shave  off  the  knots, 
and  smooth  it  at  top  and  bottom ;  put  it  where 
you  will,  it  will  do  no  harm,  it  will  never  sprout. 
You  may  make  a  handle  of  it,  or  you  may  throw 
it  on  the  bonfire  of  scoured  rubbish.  I  don't  see 
why  our  rubbish  is  to  be  held  sacred  any  more 
than  the  rubbish  of  Brahmanism  or  Buddhism." 

"  No,"  said  Mordecai,  "  no,  Pash,  because  you 
have  lost  the  heart  of  the  Jew.  Community  was 
felt  before  it  was  called  good.  I  praise  no  super- 
stition ;  I  praise  the  living  fountains  of  enlarging 
belief.  What  is  growth,  completion,  development  ? 
You  began  with  that  question,  I  apply  it  to  the 
history  of  our  people.  I  say  that  the  effect  of  our 
separateness  will  not  be  completed  and  have  its 
highest  transformation  unless  our  race  takes  on 
again  the  character  of  a  nationality.  That  is  the 
fulfillment  of  the  religious  trust  that  moulded  them 
into  a  people,  whose  life  has  made  half  the  in- 
spiration of  the  world.  What  is  it  to  me  that 
the  ten  tribes  are  lost  untraceably,  or  that  multi- 
tudes of  the  children  of  Judah  have  mixed  them- 
selves with  the  Gentile  populations  as  a  river  with 
rivers?  Behold  our  people  still!  Their  skirts 
spread  afar :  they  are  torn  and  soiled  and  trod- 
den on ;  but  there  is  a  jeweled  breastplate.  Let 
the  wealthy  men,  the  monarchs  of  commerce,  the 
learned  in  all  knowledge,  the  skillful  in  all  arts, 
the  speakers,  the  political  counselors,  who  carry 
in  their  veins  the  Hebrew  blood  which  has  main- 
tained its  vigor  in  all  climates,  and  the  pliancy 
of  the  Hebrew  genius  for  which  difficulty  means 
new  device — let  them  say,  '  We  will  lift  up  a 
standard,  we  will  unite  in  a  labor  hard  but  glo- 
rious like  that  of  Moses  and  Ezra,  a  labor  which 
shall  be  a  worthy  fruit  of  the  long  anguish  where- 
by our  fathers  maintained  their  separateness,  re- 
fusing the  ease  of  falsehood.'  They  have  wealth 
enough  to  redeem  the  soil  from  debauched  and 
paupered  conquerors ;  they  have  the  skill  of  the 
statesman  to  devise,  the  tongue  of  the  orator  to 
persuade.  And  is  there  no  prophet  or  poet  among 
us  to  make  the  ears  of  Christian  Europe  tingle 
with  shame  at  the  hideous  obloquy  of  Christian 
strife  which  the  Turk  gazes  at  as  at  the  fighting 
of  beasts  to  which  he  has  lent  an  arena  ?  There 
is  store  of  wisdom  among  us  to  found  a  new  Jew- 
ish polity,  grand,  simple,  just,  like  the  old — a  re- 
public  where  there  is  equality  of  protection,  an 
equality  which  shone  like  a  star  on  the  forehead 
of  our  ancient  community,  and  gave  it  more  than 
the  brightness  of  Western  freedom  amidst  the 
despotisms  of  the  East.  Then  our  race  shall 
have  an  organic  centre,  a  heart  and  brain  to 
watch  and  guide  and  execute ;  the  outraged  Jew 
shall  have  a  defense  in  the  court  of  nations,  as 
the  outraged  Englishman  or  American.  And  the 
world  will  gain  as  Israel  gains.  For  there  will 
be  a  community  in  the  van  of  tho  East  which 
carries  the  culture  and  the  sympathies  of  every 
great  nation  in  its  bosom ;  there  will  be  a  land 
set  for  a  halting -place  of  enmities,  a  neutral 
ground  for  the  East  as  Belgium  is  for  the  West. 
Difficulties  ?  I  know  there  are  difficulties.  But 
let  the  spirit  of  sublime  achievement  move  in  the 
great  among  our  people,  and  the  work  will  begin." 

"Ay,  we  may  safely  admit  that,  Mordecai," 
said  Pash.  • "  When  there  are  great  men  on 
'Change  and  high-flying  professors  converted  to 
your  doctrine,  difficulties  will  vanish  like  smoke." 


182 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Deronda,  inclined  by  nature  to  take  the  side  of 
those  on  whom  the  arrows  of  scorn  were  falling, 
could  not  help  replying  to  Fash's  outfiing,  and 
said: 

"  If  we  look  back  to  the  history  of  efforts  which 
hare  made  great  changes,  it  is  astonishing  how 
many  of  them  seemed  hopeless  to  those  who  look- 
ed on  in  the  beginning.  Take  what  we  have  all 
heard  and  seen  something  of— the  effort  after 
the  unity  of  Italy,  which  we  are  sure  soon  to  see 
accomplished  to  the  very  last  boundary.  Look 
into  Mazzini's  account  of  his  first  yearning,  when 
he  was  a  boy,  after  a  restored  greatness  and  a 
new  freedom  to  Italy,  and  of  his  first  efforts  as  a 
young  man  to  rouse  the  same  feelings  in  other 
young  men,  and  get  them  to  work  toward  a  united 
nationality.  Almost  every  thing  seemed  against 
him :  his  countrymen  were  ignorant  or  indiffer- 
ent, governments  hostile,  Europe  incredulous. 
Of  course  the  scorners  often  seemed  wise.  Yet 
you  see  the  prophecy  lay  with  him.  As  long  as 
there  is  a  remnant  of  national  consciousness,  I 
suppose  nobody  will  deny  that  there  may  be  a 
new  stirring  of  memories  and  hopes  which  may 
inspire  arduous  action." 

"  Amen,"  said  Mordecai,  to  whom  Deronda's 
words  were  a  cordial.  "What  is  needed  is  the 
leaven — what  is  needed  is  the  seed  of  fire.  The 
heritage  of  Israel  is  beating  in  the  pulses  of  mill- 
ions; it  lives  in  their  veins  as  a  power  without 
understanding,  like  the  morning  exultation  of 
herds ;  it  is  the  inborn  half  of  memory,  moving 
as  in  a  dream  among  writings  on  the  walls,  which 
it  sees  dimly  but  can  not  divide  into  speech.  Let 
the  torch  of  visible  community  be  lit !  Let  the 
reason  of  Israel  disclose  itself  in  a  great  outward 
deed,  and  let  there  be  another  great  migration, 
another  choosing  of  Israel  to  be  a  nationality 
whose  members  may  still  stretch  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  even  as  the  sons  of  England  and  Ger- 
many, whom  enterprise  carries  afar,  but  who  still 
have  a  national  hearth  and  a  tribunal  of  national 
opinion.  Will  any  say  '  It  can  not  be?'  Baruch 
Spinoza  had  not  a  faithful  Jewish  heart,  though 
he  had  sucked  the  life  of  his  intellect  at  the 
breasts  of  Jewish  tradition.  He  laid  bare  his 
father's  nakedness  and  said,  'They  who  scorn 
him  have  the  higher  wisdom.'  Yet  Baruch  Spi- 
noza confessed  he  saw  not  why  Israel  should  not 
again  be  a  chosen  nation.  Who  says  that  the 
history  and  literature  of  our  race  are  dead  ?  Are 
they  not  as  living  as  the  history  and  literature  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  which  have  inspired  revolu- 
tions, enkindled  the  thought  of  Europe,  and  made 
the  unrighteous  powers  tremble  ?  These  were  an 
inheritance  dug  from  the  tomb.  Ours  is  an  in- 
heritance that  has  never  ceased  to  quiver  in  mill- 
ions of  human  frames." 

Mordecai  had  stretched  his  arms  upward,  and 
his  long  thin  hands  quivered  in  the  air  for  a  mo- 
ment after  he  had  ceased  to  speak.  Gideon  was 
certainly  a  little  moved,  for  though  there  was  no 
long  pause  before  he  made  a  remark  in  objection, 
his  tone  was  more  mild  and  deprecatory  than  be- 
fore ;  Pash,  meanwhile,  pressing  his  lips  togeth- 
er, rubbing  his  black  head  with  both  his  hands, 
and  wrinkling  his  brow  horizontally,  with  the  ex- 
pression of  one  who  differs  from  every  speaker, 
but  does  not  think  it  worth  while  to  say  so. 
There  is  a  sort  of  human  paste  that  when  it  comes 
near  the  fire  of  enthusiasm  is  only  baked  into 
harder  shape. 


"  It  may  seem  well  enough  on  one  side  to  make 
so  much  of  our  memories  and  inheritance  as  you 
do,  Mordecai,"  said  Gideon ;  "  but  there's  anoth- 
er side.  It  isn't  all  gratitude  and  harmless  glory. 
Our  people  have  inherited  a  good  deal  of  hatred. 
There's  a  pretty  lot  of  curses  still  flying  about, 
and  stiff  settled  rancor  inherited  from  the  times 
of  persecution.  How  will  you  justify  keeping 
one  sort  of  memory  and  throwing  away  the  oth- 
er? There  are  ugly  debts  standing  on  both 
sides." 

"  I  justify  the  choice  as  all  other  choice  is  justi- 
fied," said  Mordecai.  "  I  cherish  nothing  for  the 
Jewish  nation,  I  seek  nothing  for  them,  but  the 
good  which  promises  good  to  all  the  nations. 
The  spirit  of  our  religious  life,  which  is  one  with 
our  national  life,  is  not  hatred  of  aught  but  wrong. 
The  Masters  have  said  an  offense  against  man  is 
worse  than  an  offense  against  God.  But  what 
wonder  if  there  is  hatred  in  the  breasts  of  Jews 
who  are  children  of  the  ignorant  and  oppressed 
— what  wonder,  since  there  is  hatred  in  the  breasts 
of  Christians  ?  Our  national  life  was  a  growing 
light.  Let  the  central  fire  be  kindled  again,  and 
the  light  will  reach  afar.  The  degraded  and 
scorned  of  our  race  will  learn  to  think  of  their  sa- 
cred land  not  as  a  place  for  saintly  beggary  to 
await  death  in  loathsome  idleness,  but  as  a  repub- 
lic where  the  Jewish  spirit  manifests  itself  in  a 
new  order  founded  on  the  old,  purified,  enriched 
by  the  experience  our  greatest  sons  have  gath- 
ered from  the  life  of  the  ages.  How  long  is  it  ? 
— only  two  centuries  since  a  vessel  carried  over 
the  ocean  the  beginning  of  the  great  North 
American  nation.  The  people  grew  like  meeting 
waters :  they  were  various  in  habit  and  sect. 
There  came  a  time,  a  century  ago,  when  they 
needed  a  polity,  and  there  were  heroes  of  peace 
among  them.  What  had  they  to  form  a  polity 
with  but  memories  of  Europe,  corrected  by  the 
vision  of  a  better?  Let  our  wise  and  wealthy 
show  themselves  heroes.  They  have  the  memo- 
ries of  the  East  and  West,  and  they  have  the  full 
vision  of  a  better.  A  new  Persia  with  a  purified 
religion  magnified  itself  in  art  and  wisdom.  So 
will  a  new  Judaea,  poised  between  East  and  West 
— a  covenant  of  reconciliation.  Will  any  say  the 
prophetic  vision  of  your  race  has  been  hopelessly 
mixed  with  folly  and  bigotry ;  the  angel  of  prog- 
ress has  no  message  for  Judaism — it  is  a  half- 
buried  city  for  the  paid  workers  to  lay  open — the 
waters  are  rushing  by  it  as  a  forsaken  field  ?  I 
say  that  the  strongest  principle  of  growth  lies  in 
human  choice.  The  sons  of  Judah  have  to  choose 
that  God  may  again  choose  them.  The  Messianic 
time  is  the  time  when  Israel  shall  will  the  plant- 
ing of  the  national  ensign.  The  Nile  overflow- 
ed and  rushed  onward :  the  Egyptian  could  not 
choose  the  overflow,  but  he  chose  to  work  and 
make  channels  for  the  fructifying  waters,  and 
Egypt  became  the  land  of  corn.  Shall  man, 
whose  soul  is  set  in  the  royalty  of  discernment 
and  resolve,  deny  his  rank  and  say,  I  am  an  on- 
looker, ask  no  choice  or  purpose  of  me  ?  That  is 
the  blasphemy  of  this  time.  The  divine  principle 
of  our  race  is  action,  choice,  resolved  memory. 
Let  us  contradict  the  blasphemy,  and  help  to  will 
our  own  better  future  and  the  better  future  of 
the  world — not  renounce  our  higher  gift  and  say, 
'  Let  us  be  as  if  we  were  not  among  the  popula- 
tions ;'  but  choose  our  full  heritage,  claim  the 
brotherhood  of  our  nation,  and  carry  into  it  a 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


183 


new  brotherhood  with  the  nations  of  the  Gentiles. 
The  vision  is  there ;  it  will  be  fulfilled." 

With  the  last  sentence,  which  was  no  more 
than  a  loud  whisper,  Mordecai  let  his  chin  sink 
on  his  breast  and  his  eyelids  fall.  No  one  spoke. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  he  had  insisted  on 
the  same  ideas,  but  he  was  seen  to-night  in  a  new 
phase.  The  quiet  tenacity  of  his  ordinary  self 
differed  as  much  from  his  present  exaltation  of 
mood  as  a  man  in  private  talk,  giving  reasons  for 
a  revolution  of  which  no  sign  is  discernible,  dif- 
fers from  one  who  feels  himself  an  agent  in  a  rev- 
olution begun.  The  dawn  of  fulfillment  brought 
to  his  hope  by  Deronda's  presence  had  wrought 
Mordecai's  conception  into  a  state  of  impassioned 
conviction,  and  he  had  found  strength  in  his  ex- 
citement to  pour  forth  the  unlocked  floods  of 
emotive  argument,  with  a  sense  of  haste  as  at  a 
crisis  which  must  be  seized.  But  now  there  had 
come  with  the  quiescence  of  fatigue  a  sort  of 
thankful  wonder  that  he  had  spoken — a  contem- 
plation of  his  life  as  a  journey  which  had  come 
at  last  to  this  bourne.  After  a  great  excitement, 
the  ebbing  strength  of  impulse  is  apt  to  leave  us 
in  this  aloofness  from  our  active  self.  And  in 
the  moments  after  Mordecai  had  sunk  his  head, 
his  mind  was  wandering  along  the  paths  of  his 
youth,  and  all  the  hopes  which  had  ended  in 
bringing  him  hither. 

Every  one  felt  that  the  talk  was  ended,  and  the 
tone  of  phlegmatic  discussion  made  unseasona- 
ble by  Mordecai's  high-pitched  solemnity.  It  was 
as  if  they  had  come  together  to  hear  the  blowing 
of  the  shophar,  and  had  nothing  to  do  now  but  to 
disperse.  The  movement  was  unusually  general, 
and  in  less  than  ten  minutes  the  room  was  empty 
of  all  except  Mordecai  and  Deronda.  "Good- 
nights"  had  been  given  to  Mordecai,  but  it  was 
evident  he  had  not  heard  them,  for  he  remained 
rapt  and  motionless.  Deronda  would  not  dis- 
turb this  needful  rest,  but  waited  for  a  spon- 
taneous movement. 


CHAPTER  XLIH. 

'  My  spirit  is  too  weak ;  mortality 
Weighs  heavily  on  me  like  unwilling  sleep, 
And  each  imagined  pinnacle  and  steep 
Of  godlike  hardship  tells  me  I  must  die 


Like  a  sick  eagle  looking 


t  the  sky. 

—KEATS. 


AFTER  a  few  minutes  the  unwonted  stillness  had 
penetrated  Mordecai's  consciousness,  and  he  look- 
ed up  at  Deronda,  not  in  the  least  with  bewilder- 
ment and  surprise,  but  with  a  gaze  full  of  repos- 
ing satisfaction.  Deronda  rose  and  placed  his 
chair  nearer,  where  there  could  be  no  imagined 
need  for  raising  the  voice.  Mordecai  felt  the  ac- 
tion as  a  patient  feels  the  gentleness  that  eases 
his  pillow.  He  began  to  speak  in  a  low  tone,  as 
if  he  were  only  thinking  articulately,  not  trying 
to  reach  an  audience. 

"  In  the  doctrine  of  the  Cabala,  souls  are  born 
again  and  again  in  new  bodies  till  they  are  per- 
fected and  purified,  and  a  soul  liberated  from  a 
worn-out  body  may  join  the  fellow-soul  that  needs 
it,  that  they  may  be  perfected  together,  and  their 
earthly  work  accomplished.  Then  they  will  de- 
part from  the  mortal  region,  and  leave  place  for 
new  souls  to  be  born  out  of  the  store  in  the  eter- 
nal bosom.  It  is  the  lingering  imperfection  of 
the  souls  already  born  into  the  mortal  region  that 


hinders  the  birth  of  new  souls  and  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  Messianic  time :  thus  the  mind  has 
given  shape  to  what  is  hidden,  as  the  shadow  of 
what  is  known,  and  has  spoken  truth,  though  it 
were  only  in  parable.  When  my  long-wandering 
soul  is  liberated  from  this  weary  body,  it  will 
join  yours,  and  its  work  will  be  perfected." 

Mordecai's  pause  seemed  an  appeal  which  De- 
ronda's feelings  would  not  let  him  leave  unan- 
swered. He  tried  to  make  it  truthful ;  but  for 
Mordecai's  ear  it  was  inevitably  filled  with  un- 
spoken meanings.  He  only  said, 

"  Every  thing  I  can  in  conscience  do  to  make 
your  life  effective  I  will  do." 

"  I  know  it,"  said  Mordecai,  in  the  tone  of  quiet 
certainty  which  dispenses  with  further  assurance. 
"  I  heard  it.  You  see  it  all — you  are  by  my  side 
on  the  mount  of  vision,  and  behold  the  paths  of 
fulfillment  which  others  deny." 

He  was  silent  a  moment  or  two,  and  then  went 
on  meditatively : 

"  You  will  take  up  my  life  where  it  was  broken. 
I  feel  myself  back  in  that  day  when  my  life  was 
broken.  The  bright  morning  sun  was  on  the  quay 
— it  was  at  Trieste — the  garments  of  men  from  all 
nations  shone  like  jewels — the  boats  were  push- 
ing off — the  Greek  vessel  that  would  land  us  at 
Beyrout  was  to  start  in  an  hour.  I  was  going 
with  a  merchant  as  his  clerk  and  companion.  I 
said,  I  shall  behold  the  lands  and  people  of  the 
East,  and  I  shall  speak  with  a  fuller  vision.  I 
breathed  then  as  you  do,  without  labor ;  I  had  the 
light  step  and  the  endurance  of  youth ;  I  could 
fast,  I  could  sleep  on  the  hard  ground.  I  had 
wedded  poverty,  and  I  loved  my  bride — for  pov- 
erty to  me  was  freedom.  My  heart  exulted  as  if 
it  had  been  the  heart  of  Moses  ben  Maimon,  strong 
with  the  strength  of  threescore  years,  and  know- 
ing the  work  that  was  to  fill  them.  It  was  the 
first  time  I  had  been  south :  the  soul  within  me 
felt  its  former  sun ;  and  standing  on  the  quay, 
where  the  ground  I  stood  on  seemed  to  send  forth 
light,  and  the  shadows  had  an  azure  glory  as  of 
spirits  become  visible,  I  felt  myself  in  the  flood  of 
a  glorious  life,  wherein  my  own  small  year-count- 
ed existence  seemed  to  melt,  so  that  I  knew  it  not ; 
and  a  great  sob  arose  within  me  as  at  the  rush  of 
waters  that  were  too  strong  a  bliss.  So  I  stood 
there  awaiting  my  companion ;  and  I  saw  him  not 
till  he  said,  '  Ezra,  I  have  been  to  the  post,  and 
there  is  your  letter.' " 

"  Ezra !"  exclaimed  Deronda,  unable  to  contain 
himself. 

"  Ezra,"  repeated  Mordecai,  affirmatively,  en- 
grossed in  memory.  "  I  was  expecting  a  letter ; 
for  I  wrote  continually  to  my  mother.  And  that 
sound  of  my  name  was  like  the  touch  of  a  wand 
that  recalled  me  to  the  body  wherefrom  I  had 
been  released  as  it  were  to  mingle  with  the  ocean 
of  human  existence,  free  from  the  pressure  of  in- 
dividual bondage.  I  opened  the  letter ;  and  the 
name  came  again  as  a  cry  that  would  have  dis- 
turbed me  in  the  bosom  of  heaven,  and  made  me 
yearn  to  reach  where  that  sorrow  was — 'Ezra, 
my  son !' " 

Mordecai  paused  again,  his  imagination  arrest- 
ed by  the  grasp  of  that  long-passed  moment. 
Deronda's  mind  was  almost  breathlessly  suspend- 
ed on  what  was  coming.  A  strange  possibility 
had  suddenly  presented  itself.  Mordecai's  eyes 
were  cast  down  in  abstracted  contemplation,  and 
in  a  few  momenta  he  went  on : 


184 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"She  was  a  mother  of  whom  it  might  have 
come — yea,  might  have  come  to  be  said,  '  Her 
children  arise  up  and  call  her  blessed.'  In  her  I 
understood  the  meaning  of  that  Master  who,  per- 
ceiving the  footsteps  of  his  mother,  rose  up  and 
said, '  The  majesty  of  the  Eternal  cometh  near !' 
And  that  letter  was  her  cry  from  the  depths  of  an- 
guish and  desolation — the  cry  of  a  mother  robbed 
of  her  little  one.  I  was  her  eldest.  Death  had 
taken  four  babes,  one  after  the  other.  Then  came 
late  my  little  sister,  who  was  more  than  all  the 
rest  the  desire  of  her  mother's  eyes ;  and  the  let- 
ter was  a  piercing  cry  to  me — '  Ezra,  my  son,  I  am 
robbed  of  her.  He  has  taken  her  away,  and  left 
disgrace  behind.  They  will  never  come  again.'  " 
—Here  Mordecai  lifted  his  eyes  suddenly,  laid  his 
hand  on  Deronda's  arm,  and  said,  "  Mine  was  the 
lot  of  Israel  For  the  sin  of  the  father  my  soul 
must  go  into  exile.  For  the  sin  of  the  father  the 
work  was  broken,  and  the  day  of  fulfillment  de- 
layed. She  who  bore  me  was  desolate,  disgraced, 
destitute.  I  turned  back.  On  the  instant  I  turn- 
ed— her  spirit,  and  the  spirit  of  her  fathers,  who 
had  worthy  Jewish  hearts,  moved  within  me,  and 
drew  me.  God,  in  whom  dwells  the  universe, 
was  within  me  as  the  strength  of  obedience.  I 
turned  and  traveled  with  hardship — to  save  the 
scant  money  which  she  would  need.  I  left  the 
sunshine,  and  traveled  into  freezing  cold.  In  the 
last  stage  I  spent  a  night  in  exposure  to  cold  and 
snow.  And  that  was  the  beginning  of  this  slow 
death." 

Mordecai  let  his  eyes  wander  again,  and  re- 
moved his  hand.  Deronda  resolutely  repressed 
the  questions  which  urged  themselves  within  him. 
While  Mordecai  was  in  this  state  of  emotion,  no 
other  confidence  must  be  sought  than  what  came 
spontaneously :  nay,  he  himself  felt  a  kindred 
emotion  which  made  him  dread  his  own  speech 
as  too  momentous. 

"But  I  worked.  We  were  destitute— every 
thing  had  been  seized.  And  she  was  ill :  the 
clutch  of  anguish  was  too  strong  for  her,  and 
wrought  with  some  lurking  disease.  At  times 
she  could  not  stand  for  the  beating  of  her  heart, 
and  the  images  in  her  brain  became  as  chambers 
of  terror,  where  she  beheld  my  sister  reared  in 
evil.  In  the  dead  of  night  I  heard  her  crying  for 
her  child.  Then  I  rose,  and  we  stretched  forth 
our  arms  together  and  prayed.  We  poured  forth 
our  souls  in  desire  that  Mirah  might  be  delivered 
from  evil." 

"  Mirah  ?"  Deronda  repeated,  wishing  to  assure 
himself  that  his  ears  had  not  been  deceived  by  a 
forecasting  imagination.  "  Did  you  say  Mirah  ?" 

"  That  was  my  little  sister's  name.  After  we 
had  prayed  for  her  my  mother  would  rest  a  while. 
It  lasted  hardly  four  years,  and  in  the  minutes  be- 
fore she  died,  we  were  praying  the  same  prayer— 
I  aloud,  she  silently.  Her  soul  went  forth  upon 
its  wings." 

"  Have  you  never  since  heard  of  your  sister  ?" 
said  Deronda,  as  quietly  as  he  could. 

"  Never.  Never  have  I  heard  whether  she  was 
delivered  according  to  our  prayer.  I  know  not, 
I  know  not.  Who  shall  say  where  the  pathways 
lie  ?  The  poisonous  will  of  the  wicked  is  strong. 
It  poisoned  my  life — it  is  slowly  stifling  this 
breath.  Death  delivered  my  mother,  and  I  felt 
it  a  blessedness  that  I  was  alone  in  the  winters 
of  suffering.  But  what  are  the  winters  now  ? — 
they  are  far  off"— here  Mordecai  again  rested  his 


hand  on  Deronda's  arm,  and  looked  at  him  with 
that  joy  of  the  hectic  patient  which  pierces  us  to 
sadness — "  there  is  nothing  to  wail  in  the  wither- 
ing of  my  body.  The  work  will  be  the  better 
done.  Once  I  said,  the  work  of  this  beginning  is 
mine,  I  am  born  to  do  it.  Well,  I  shall  do  it.  I 
shall  live  in  you.  I  shall  live  in  you." 

His  grasp  had  become  convulsive  in  its  force, 
and  Deronda,  agitated  as  he  had  never  been  be- 
fore— the  certainty  that  this  was  Mirah's  brother 
suffusing  his  own  strange  relation  to  Mordecai 
with  a  new  solemnity  and  tenderness — felt  his 
strong  young  heart  beating  faster  and  his  lips 
paling.  He  shrank  from  speech.  He  feared,  in 
Mordecai's  present  state  of  exaltation  (already 
an  alarming  strain  on  his  feeble  frame)  to  utter 
a  word  of  revelation  about  Mirah.  He  feared 
to  make  an  answer  below  that  high  pitch  of  ex- 
pectation which  resembled  a  flash  from  a  dying 
fire,  making  watchers  fear  to  see  it  dying  the 
faster.  His  dominant  impulse  was  to  do  as  he 
had  once  done  before:  he  laid  his  firm  gentle 
hand  on  the  hand  that  grasped  him.  Mordecai's, 
as  if  it  had  a  soul  of  its  own — for  he  was  not  dis- 
tinctly willing  to  do  what  he  did — relaxed  its  grasp, 
and  turned  upward  under  Deronda's.  As  the  two 
palms  met  and  pressed  each  other,  Mordecai  re- 
covered some  sense  of  his  surroundings,  and  said, 

"  Let  us  go  now.     I  can  not  talk  any  longer." 

And  in  fact  they  parted  at  Cohen's  door  with- 
out having  spoken  to  each  other  again — merely 
with  another  pressure  of  the  hands. 

Deronda  felt  a  weight  on  him  which  was  half 
joy,  half  anxiety.  The  joy  of  finding  in  Mirah's 
brother  a  nature  even  more  than  worthy  of  that 
relation  to  her,  had  the  weight  of  solemnity  and 
sadness :  the  reunion  of  brother  and  sister  was  in 
reality  the  first  stage  of  a  supreme  parting — like 
that  farewell  kiss  which  resembles  greeting,  that 
last  glance  of  love  which  becomes  the  sharpest 
pang  of  sorrow.  Then  there  was  the  weight  of 
anxiety  about  the  revelation  of  the  fact  on  both 
sides,  and  the  arrangements  it  would  be  desirable 
to  make  beforehand.  I  suppose  we  should  all 
have  felt  as  Deronda  did,  without  sinking  into 
snobbishness  qr  the  notion  that  the  primal  duties 
of  life  demand  a  morning  and  an  evening  suit,  that 
it  was  an  admissible  desire  to  free  Mirah's  first 
meeting  with  her  brother  from  all  jarring  outward 
conditions.  His  own  sense  of  deliverance  from 
the  dreaded  relationship  of  the  other  Cohens,  not- 
withstanding their  good  nature,  made  him  resolve 
if  possible  to  keep  them  in  the  background  for 
Mirah,  until  her  acquaintance  with  them  would 
be  an  unmarred  rendering  of  gratitude  for  any 
kindness  they  had  shown  toward  her  brother. 
On  all  accounts  he  wished  to  give  Mordecai  sur- 
roundings not  only  more  suited  to  his  frail  bodily 
condition,  but  less  of  a  hinderancc  to  easy  inter- 
course, even  apart  from  the  decisive  prospect  of 
Mirah's  taking  up  her  abode  with  her  brother,  and 
tending  him  through  the  precious  remnant  of  his 
life.  In  the  heroic  drama,  great  recognitions  are 
not  encumbered  with  these  details ;  and  certainly 
Deronda  had  as  reverential  an  interest  in  Mordecai 
and  Mirah  as  he  could  have  had  in  the  offspring 
of  Agamemnon ;  but  he  was  caring  for  destinies 
still  moving  in  the  dim  streets  of  our  earthly  life, 
not  yet  lifted  among  the  constellations,  and  his 
task  presented  itself  to  him  as  difficult  and  deli- 
cate, especially  in  persuading  Mordecai  to  change 
his  abode  and  habits.  Concerning  Mirah's  feel- 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


185 


this*  ly 


ing  and  resolve  he  had  no  doubt :  there  would  be 
a  complete  union  of  sentiment  toward  the  depart- 
ed mother,  and  Mi  rah  would  understand  her  broth- 
er's greatness.  Yes,  greatness :  that  was  the  word 
which  Deronda  now  deliberately  chose  to  signify 
the  impression  that  Mordecai  made  on  him.  He 
said  to  himself,  perhaps  rather  defiantly  toward 
the  more  negative  spirit  within  him,  that  this1 
man,  however  erratic  some  of  his  interpretations 
might  be — this  consumptive  Jewish  workman  in 
threadbare  clothing,  lodged  by  charity,  delivering 
himself  to  hearers  who  took  his  thoughts  without 
attaching  more  consequences  to  them  than  the 
Flemings  to  the  ethereal  chimes  ringing  above 
their  market-places — had  the  chief  elements  of 
greatness :  a  mind  consciously,  energetically  mov- 
ing with  the  larger  march  of  human  destinies,  but 
not  the  less  full  of  conscience  and  tender  heart  for 
the  footsteps  that  tread  near  and  need  a  leaning- 
place  ;  capable  of  conceiving  and  choosing  a  life's 
task  with  far-off  issues,  yet  capable  of  the  un- 
applauded  heroism  which  turns  off  the  road  of 
achievement  at  the  call  of  the  nearer  duty  whose 
effect  lies  within  the  beatings  of  the  hearts  that 
are  close  to  us,  as  the  hunger  of  the  unfledged 
bird  to  the  breast  of  its  parent. 

Deronda  to-night  was  stirred  with  the  feeling 
that  the  brief  remnant  of  this  fervid  life  had  be- 
come his  charge.  He  had  been  peculiarly  wrought 
on  by  what  he  had  seen  at  the  club  of  the  friend- 
ly indifference  which  Mordecai  must  have  gone  on 
encountering.  His  own  experience  of  the  small 
room  that  ardor  can  make  for  itself  in  ordinary 
minds  had  had  the  effect  of  increasing  his  re- 
serve ;  and  while  tolerance  was  the  easiest  atti- 
tude to  him,  there  was  another  bent  in  him  also 
capable  of  becoming  a  weakness — the  dislike  to 
appear  exceptional  or  to  risk  an  ineffective  in- 
sistence on  his  own  opinion.  But  such  caution 
appeared  contemptible  to  him  just  now,  when  he 
for  the  first  time  saw  in  a  complete  picture  and 
felt  as  a  reality  the  lives  that  burn  themselves 
out  in  solitary  enthusiasm :  martyrs  of  obscure 
circumstance,  exiled  in  the  rarity  of  their  own 
minds,  whose  deliverances  in  other  ears  are  no 
more  than  a  long  passionate  soliloquy — unless 
perhaps  at  last,  when  they  are  nearing  the  invis- 
ible shores,  signs  of  recognition  and  fulfillment 
may  penetrate  the  cloud  of  loneliness ;  or  perhaps 
it  may  be  with  them  as  with  the  dying  Copernicus 
made  to  touch  the  first  printed  copy  of  his  book 
when  the  sense  of  touch  was  gone,  seeing  it  only 
as  a  dim  object  through  the  deepening  dusk. 

Deronda  had  been  brought  near  to  one  of  those 
spiritual  exiles,  and  it  was  in  his  nature  to  feel  the 
relation  as  a  strong  claim,  nay,  to  feel  his  imagi- 
nation moving  without  repugnance  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Mordecai's  desires.  With  all  his  latent 
objection  to  schemes  only  definite  in  their  gener- 
ality and  nebulous  in  detail,  in  the  poise  of  his 
sentiments  he  felt  at  one  with  this  man  who  had 
made  a  visionary  selection  of  him :  the  lines  of 
what  may  be  called  their  emotional  theory  touched. 
He  had  not  the  Jewish  consciousness,  but  he  had 
a  yearning,  grown  the  stronger  for  the  denial 
which  had  been  his  grievance,  after  the  obligation 
of  avowed  filial  and  social  ties.  His  feeling  was 
ready  for  difficult  obedience.  In  this  way  it  came 
that  he  set  about  his  new  task  ungrudgingly ;  and 
again  he  thought  of  Mrs.  Meyrick  as  his  chief 
helper.  To  her  first  he  must  make  known  the  dis- 
covery of  Mirah's  brother,  and  with  her  he  must 


consult  on  all  preliminaries  of  bringing  the  mutu- 
ally lost  together.  Happily  the  best  quarter  for 
a  consumptive  patient  did  not  lie  too  far  off  the 
small  house  at  Chelsea,  and  the  first  office  Deron- 
da had  to  perform  for  this  Hebrew  prophet  who 
claimed  him  as  a  spiritual  inheritor  was  to  get 


him  a  healthy  lodging.    Such  is  the  irony  of  earth- 
ixtures,  that  the  heroes  have  not  always  had 


s,  that 

carpets  and  tea-cups  of  their  own;  and,  seen 
through  the  open  window  by  the  mackerel  vend- 
or, may  have  been  invited  with  some  hopefulness 
to  pay  three  hundred  per  cent,  in  the  form  of  four- 
pence.  However,  Deronda's  mind  was  busy  with 
a  prospective  arrangement  for  giving  a  furnished 
lodging  some  faint  likeness  to  a  refined  home  by 
dismantling  his  own  chambers  of  his  best  old 
books  in  vellum,  his  easiest  chair,  and  the  bass- 
reliefs  of  Milton  and  Dante. 

But  was  not  Mirah  to  be  there  ?  What  furni- 
ture can  give  such  finish  to  a  room  as  a  tender 
woman's  face  ?  and  is  there  any  harmony  of  tints 
that  has  such  stirrings  of  delight  as  the  sweet 
modulations  of  her  voice  ?  Here  is  one  good,  at 
least,  thought  Deronda,  that  comes  to  Mordecai 
from  his  having  fixed  his  imagination  on  me.  He 
has  recovered  a  perfect  sister,  whose  affection  is 
waiting  for  him. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

Fairy  folk  a-listening 

Hear  the  seed  sprout  in  the  spring, 

And  for  music  to  their  dance 

Hear  the  hedge-rows  wake  from  trance, 

Sap  that  trembles  into  buds 


Sending  little  rhythmic  floods 
Of  fairy  sound  in  fairy  ears. 
Thus  all  beauty  that  appears 
Has  birth  as  sound  to  finer  sense 
And  lighter-clad  intelligence. 

AND  Gwendolen?  She  was  thinking  of  De- 
ronda much  more  than  he  was  thinking  of  her — 
often  wondering  what  were  his  ideas  "  about 
things,"  and  how  his  life  was  occupied.  But  a 
lap-dog  would  be  necessarily  at  a  loss  in  framing 
to  itself  the  motives  and  adventures  of  doghood 
at  large;  and  it  was  as  far  from  Gwendolen's 
conception  that  Deronda's  life  could  be  deter- 
mined by  the  historical  destiny  of  the  Jews,  as 
that  he  could  rise  into  the  air  on  a  brazen  horse, 
and  so  vanish  from  her  horizon  in  the  form  of  a 
twinkling  star. 

With  all  the  sense  of  inferiority  that  had  been 
forced  upon  her,  it  was  inevitable  that  she  should 
imagine  a  larger  place  for  herself  in  his  thoughts 
than  she  actually  possessed.  They  must  be  rath- 
er old  and  wise  persons  who  are  not  apt  to  see 
their  own  anxiety  or  elation  about  themselves  re- 
flected in  other  minds ;  and  Gwendolen,  with  her 
youth  and  inward  solitude,  may  be  excused  for 
dwelling  on  signs  of  special  interest  in  her  shown 
by  the  one  person  who  had  impressed  her  with 
the  feeling  of  submission,  and  for  mistaking  the 
color  and  proportion  of  those  signs  in  the  mind 
of  Deronda. 

Meanwhile,  what  would  he  tell  her  that  she 
ought  to  do?  "He  said  I  must  .get  more  inter- 
est in  others,  and  more  knowledge,  and  that  I 
must  care  about  the  best  things ;  but  how  am  I 
to  begin?"  She  wondered  what  books  he  would 
tell  her  to  take  up  to  her  own  room,  and  recalled 
the  famous  writers  that  she  had  either  not  look- 
ed into  or  had  found  the  most  unreadable,  with  a 


166 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


half-smiling  wish  that  she  could  mischievously 
ask  Deronda  if  they  were  not  the  books  called 
"  medicine  for  the  mind."  Then  she  repented  of 
her  sauciness,  and  when  she  was  safe  from  ob- 
servation, carried  up  a  miscellaneous  selection — 
Descartes,  Bacon,  Locke,  Butler,  Burke,  Guizot 
— knowing,  as  a  clever  young  lady  of  education, 
that  these  authors  were  ornaments  of  mankind, 
feeling  sure  that  Deronda  had  read  them,  and 
hoping  that  by  dipping  into  them  all  in  succes- 
sion, with  her  rapid  understanding  she  might  get 
a  point  of  view  nearer  to  his  level. 

But  it  was  astonishing  how  little  time  she 
found  for  these  vast  mental  excursions.  Con- 
stantly she  had  to  be  on  the  scene  as  Mrs.  Grand- 
court,  and  to  feel  herself  watched  in  that  part  by 
the  exacting  eyes  of  a  husband  who  had  found  a 
motive  to  exercise  his  tenacity — that  of  making 
his  marriage  answer  all  the  ends  he  chose,  and 
with  the  more  completeness  the  more  he  dis- 
cerned any  opposing  will  in  her.  And  she  her- 
self, whatever  rebellion  might  be  going  on  within 
her,  could  not  have  made  up  her  mind  to  failure 
in  her  representation.  No  feeling  had  yet  recon- 
ciled her  for  a  moment  to  any  act,  word,  or  look 
that  would  be  a  confession  to  the  world;  and 
what  she  most  dreaded  in  herself  was  any  violent 
impulse  that  would  make  an  involuntary  confes- 
sion :  it  was  the  will  to  be  silent  in  every  other 
direction  that  had  thrown  the  more  impetuosity 
into  her  confidences  toward  Deronda,  to  whom 
her  thought  constantly  turned  as  a  help  against 
herself.  Her  riding,  her  hunting,  her  visiting 
and  receiving  of  visits,  were  all  performed  in  a 
spirit  of  achievement  which  served  instead  of 
zest  and  young  gladness,  so  that  all  round  Dip- 
low,  in  those  weeks  of  the  New  Year,  Mrs. 
Grandcourt  was  regarded  as  wearing  her  honors 
with  triumph. 

"  She  disguises  it  under  an  air  of  taking  every 
thing  as  a  matter  of  course,"  said  Mrs.  Arrow- 
point.  "  A  stranger  might  suppose  that  she  had 
condescended  rather  than  risen.  I  always  no- 
ticed that  doubleness  in  her." 

To  her  mother  most  of  all  Gwendolen  was  bent 
on  acting  complete  satisfaction,  and  poor  Mrs. 
Davilow  was  so  far  deceived  that  she  took  the 
unexpected  distance  at  which  she  was  kept,  in 
spite  of  what  she  felt  to  be  Grandcourt's  hand- 
some behavior  in  providing  for  her,  as  a  com- 
parative indifference  in  her  daughter,  now  that 
marriage  had  created  new  interests.  To  be 
fetched  to  lunch  and  then  to  dinner  along  with 
the  Gascoignea,  to  be  driven  back  soon  after 
breakfast  the  next  morning,  and  to  have  brief 
calls  from  Gwendolen  in  which  her  husband 
waited  for  her  outside  either  on  horseback  or  sit- 
ting in  the  carriage,  was  all  the  intercourse  al- 
lowed to  the  mother. 

The  truth  was,  that  the  second  time  Gwendo- 
len proposed  to  invite  her  mother  with  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Gascoigne,  Grandcourt  had  at  first  been  si- 
lent, and  then  drawled,  "We  can't  be  having 
those  people  always.  Gascoigne  talks  too  much. 
Country  clergy  are  always  bores — with  their  con- 
founded fuss  about  every  thing." 

That  speech  was  full  of  foreboding  for  Gwen- 
dolen. To  have  her  mother  classed  under  "  those 
people"  was  enough  to  confirm  the  previous  dread 
of  bringing  her  too  near.  Still,  she  could  not  give 
the  true  reasons — she  could  not  say  to  her  mother, 
•"  Mr.  Grandcourt  wants  to  recognize  you  as  little 


as  possible ;  and  besides,  it  is  better  you  should 
not  see  much  of  my  married  life,  else  you  might 
find  out  that  I  am  miserable."  So  she  waived  as 
lightly  as  she  could  every  allusion  to  the  subject ; 
and  when  Mrs.  Davilow  again  hinted  the  possibil- 
ity of  her  having  a  house  close  to  Ryelands,  Gwen- 
dolen said,  "  It  would  not  be  so  nice  for  you  as 
"being  near  the  Rectory  here,  mamma.  We  shall 
perhaps  be  very  little  at  Ryelands.  You  would 
miss  my  aunt  and  uncle." 

And  all  the  while  this  contemptuous  veto  of 
her  husband's  on  any  intimacy  with  her  family, 
making  her  proudly  shrink  from  giving  them 
the  aspect  of  troublesome  pensioners,  was  rous- 
ing more  inward  inclination  toward  them.  She 
had  never  felt  so  kindly  toward  her  uncle,  so 
much  disposed  to  look  back  on  his  cheerful,  com- 
placent activity  and  spirit  of  kind  management, 
even  when  mistaken,  as  more  of  a  comfort  than 
the  neutral  loftiness  which  was  every  day  chilling 
her.  And  here,  perhaps,  she  was  unconsciously 
finding  some  of  that  mental  enlargement  which 
it  was  hard  to  get  from  her  occasional  dashes  into 
difficult  authors,  who,  instead  of  blending  them- 
selves with  her  daily  agitations,  required  her  to 
dismiss  them. 

It  was  a  delightful  surprise  one  day  when  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Gascoigne  were  at  Offendene  to  see 
Gwendolen  ride  up  without  her  husband — with 
the  groom  only.  All,  including  the  four  girls  and 
Miss  Merry,  seated  in  the  dining-room  at  lunch, 
could  see  the  welcome  approach ;  and  even  the 
elder  ones  were  not  without  something  of  Isabel's 
romantic  sense  that  the  beautiful  sister  on  the 
splendid  chestnut,  which  held  its  head  as  if  proud 
to  bear  her,  was  a  sort  of  Harriet  Byron  or  Miss 
Wardour  re-appearing  out  of  her  "  happiness  ever 
after." 

Her  uncle  went  to  the  door  to  give  her  his 
hand,  and  she  sprang  from  her  horse  with  an  air 
of  alacrity  which  might  well  encourage  that  no- 
tion of  guaranteed  happiness ;  for  Gwendolen 
was  particularly  bent  to-day  on  setting  her  moth- 
er's heart  at  rest,  and  her  unusual  sense  of  free- 
dom in  being  able  to  make  this  visit  alone  enabled 
her  to  bear  up  under  the  pressure  of  painful  facts 
which  were  urging  themselves  anew.  The  seven 
family  kisses  were  not  so  tiresome  as  they  used 
to  be. 

"  Mr.  Grandcourt  is  gone  out,  so  I  determined 
to  fill  up  the  time  by  coming  to  you,  mamma," 
said  Gwendolen,  as  she  laid  down  her  hat  and 
seated  herself  next  to  her  mother ;  and  then,  look- 
ing at  her  with  a  playfully  monitory  air,  "  That  is 
a  punishment  to  you  for  not  wearing  better  lace 
on  your  head.  You  didn't  think  I  should  come 
and  detect  you — you  dreadfully  careless-about- 
yourself  mamma  !"  She  gave  a  caressing  touch 
to  the  dear  head. 

"  Scold  me,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  her  deli- 
cate worn  face  flushed  with  delight.  "  But  I  wish 
there  were  something  you  could  eat  after  your  ride 
— instead  of  these  scraps.  Let  Jocosa  make  you 
a  cup  of  chocolate  in  your  old  way.  You  used  to 
like  that." 

Miss  Merry  immediately  rose  and  went  out, 
though  Gwendolen  said,  "  Oh  no,  a  piece  of  bread, 
or  one  of  those  hard  biscuits.  I  can't  think  about 
eating.  I  am  come  to  say  good-by."  ' 

"  What !  going  to  Ryelands  again  ?"  said  Mr. 
Gascoigne. 

'  No ;  we  are  going  to  town,"  said  Gwendolen, 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


187 


beginning  to  break  up  a  piece  of  bread,  but  put- 
ting no  morsel  into  her  mouth. 

"  It  is  rather  early  to  go  to  town,"  said  Mrs.  Gas- 
coigne,  "  and  Mr.  Grandcourt  not  in  Parliament." 

"  Oh,  there  is  only  one  more  day'a  hunting  to 
be  had,  and  Henleigh  has  some  business  in  town 
with  lawyers,  I  think,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I  am 
very  glad.  I  shall  like  to  go  to  town." 

"  You  will  see  your  house  in  Grosvenor  Square," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow.  She  and  the  girls  were  de- 
vouring with  their  eyes  every  movement  of  their 
goddess,  soon  to  vanish. 

"  Yes,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a  tone  of  assent  to 
the  interest  of  that  expectation.  "And  there  is 
so  much  to  be  seen  and  done  in  town." 

"  I  wish,  my  dear  Gwendolen,"  said  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne,  in  a  tone  of  cordial  advice,  "that  you 
would  use  your  influence  with  Mr.  Grandcourt  to 
induce  him  to  enter  Parliament.  A  man  of  his 
position  should  make  his  weight  felt  in  politics. 
The  best  judges  are  confident  that  the  Ministry 
will  have  to  appeal  to  the  country  on  this  ques- 
tion of  further  Reform,  and  Mr.  Grandcourt  should 
be  ready  for  the  opportunity.  I  am  not  quite  sure 
that  his  opinions  and  mine  accord  entirely ;  I  have 
not  heard  him  express  himself  very  fully.  But  I 
don't  look  at  the  matter  from  that  point  of  view. 
I  am  thinking  of  your  husband's  standing  in  the 
country.  And  he  is  now  come  to  that  stage  of 
life  when  a  man  like  him  should  enter  into  pub- 
lic affairs.  A  wife  has  great  influence  with  her 
husband.  Use  yours  in  that  direction,  my  dear." 

The  Rector  felt  that  he  was  acquitting  himself 
of  a  duty  here,  and  giving  something  like  the  as- 
pect of  a  public  benefit  to  his  niece's  match.  To 
Gwendolen  the  whole  speech  had  the  flavor  of 
bitter  comedy.  If  she  had  been  merry,  she  must 
have  laughed  at  her  uncle's  explanation  to  her 
that  he  had  not  heard  Grandcourt  express  him- 
self very  fully  on  politics.  And  the  wife's  great 
influence !  General  maxims  about  husbands  and 
wives  seemed  now  of  a  precarious  usefulness. 
Gwendolen  herself  had  once  believed  in  her  fu- 
ture influence  as  an  omnipotence  in  managing — 
she  did  not  know  exactly  what.  But  her  chief 
concern  at  present  was  to  give  an  answer  that 
would  be  felt  appropriate. 

"I  should  be  very  glad,  uncle.  But  I  think 
Mr.  Grandcourt  would  not  like  the  triable  of  an 
election — at  least,  unless  it  could  be  without  his 
making  speeches.  I  thought  candidates  always 
made  speeches." 

"  Not  necessarily — to  any  great  extent,"  said 
Mr.  Gascoigne.  "  A  man  of  position  and  weight 
can  get  on  without  much  of  it.  A  county  mem- 
ber need  have  very  little  trouble  in  that  way,  and 
both  out  of  the  House  and  in  it  is  liked  the  bet- 
ter for  not  being  a  speechifier.  Tell  Mr.  Grand- 
court  that  I  say  so." 

"Here  comes  Jocosa  with  my  chocolate  after 
all,"  said  Gwendolen,  escaping  from  a  promise  to 
give  information  that  would  certainly  have  been 
received  in  a  way  inconceivable  to  the  good  Rec- 
tor, who,  pushing  his  chair  a  little  aside  from  the 
table  and  crossing  his  leg,  looked  as  well  as  felt 
like  a  worthy  specimen  of  a  clergyman  and  mag- 
istrate giving  experienced  advice.  Mr.  Gascoigne 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Grandcourt  was  a 
proud  man,  but  his  own  self-love,  calmed  through 
life  by  the  consciousness  of  his  general  value  and 
personal  advantages,  was  not  irritable  enough  to 
prevent  him  from  hoping  the  best  about  his 


niece's  husband  because  her  uncle  was  kept  rath- 
er haughtily  at  a  distance.  A  certain  aloofness 
must  be  allowed  to  the  representative  of  an  old 
family;  you  would  not  expect  him  to  be  on  inti- 
mate terms  even  with  abstractions.  But  Mrs. 
Gascoigne  was  less  dispassionate  on  her  husband's 
account,  and  felt  Grandcourt's  haughtiness  as 
something  a  little  blamable  in  Gwendolen. 

"  Your  uncle  and  Anna  will  very  likely  be  in 
town  about  Easter,"  she  said,  with  a  vague  sense 
of  expressing  a  slight  discontent.  "Dear  Rex 
hopes  to  come  out  with  honors  and  a  fellowship, 
and  he  wants  his  father  and  Anna  to  meet  him 
in  London,  that  they  may  be  jolly  together,  as  he 
says.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  Lord  Brackenshaw 
invited  them,  he  has  been  so  very. kind  since  he 
came  back  to  the  Castle." 

"  I  hope  my  uncle  will  bring  Anna  to  stay  in 
Grosvenor  Square,"  said  Gwendolen,  risking  her- 
self so  far,  for  the  sake  of  the  present  moment, 
but  in  reality  wishing  that  she  might  never  be 
obliged  to  bring  any  of  her  family  near  Grand- 
court  again.  "  I  am  very  glad  of  Rex's  good  for- 
tune." 

"  We  must  not  be  premature,  and  rejoice  too 
much  beforehand,"  said  the  Rector,  to  whom  this 
topic  was  the  happiest  in  the  world,  and  altogeth- 
er allowable,  now  that  the  issue  of  that  little  af- 
fair about  Gwendolen  had  been  so  satisfactory. 
"  Not  but  that  I  am  in  correspondence  with  im- 
partial judges,  who  have  the  highest  hopes  about 
my  son,  as  a  singularly  clear-headed  young  man. 
And  of  his  excellent  disposition  and  principle  I 
have  had  the  best  evidence." 

"  We  shall  have  him  a  great  lawyer  some  time," 
said  Mrs.  Gascoigne. 

"  How  very  nice !"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  con- 
cealed skepticism  as  to  niceness  in  general  which 
made  the  word  quite  applicable  to  lawyers. 

"Talking  of  Lord  Brackenshaw's  kindness," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow,  "  you  don't  know  how  delight- 
ful he  has  been,  Gwendolen.  He  has  begged  me 
to  consider  myself  his  guest  in  this  house  till  I 
can  get  another  that  I  like — he  did  it  in  the  most 
graceful  way.  But  now  a  house  has  turned  up. 
Old  Mr.  Jodson  is  dead,  and  we  can  have  his 
house.  It  is  just  what  I  want ;  small,  but  with 
nothing  hideous  to  make  you  miserable  thinking 
about  it.  And  it  is  only  a  mile  from  the  Rectory. 
You  remember  the  low  white  house  nearly  hid- 
den by  the  trees,  as  we  turn  up  the  lane  to  the 
church  ?" 

"  Yes,  but  you  have  no  furniture,  poor  mam- 
ma," said  Gwendolen,  in  a  melancholy  tone. 

"  Oh,  I  am  saving  money  for  that.  You  know 
who  has  made  me  rather  rich,  dear,"  said  Mrs. 
Davilow,  laying  her  hand  on  Gwendolen's.  "And 
Jocosa  really  makes  so  little  do  for  housekeeping 
— it  is  quite  wonderful." 

"  Oh,  please  let  me  go  up  stairs  with  you  and 
arrange  my  hat,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  sud- 
denly putting  up  her  hand  to  her  hair,  and  per- 
haps creating  a  desired  disarrangement.  Her 
heart  was  swelling,  and  she  was  ready  to  cry. 
Her  mother  must  have  been  worse  off  if  it  had 
not  been  for  Grandcourt.  "I  suppose  I  shall 
never  see  all  this  again,"  said  Gwendolen,  look- 
ing round  her  as  they  entered  the  black  and  yel- 
low bedroom,  and  then  throwing  herself  into  a 
chair  in  front  of  the  glass  with  a  little  groan  as 
of  bodily  fatigue.  In  the  resolve  not  to  cry  she 
had  become  very  pale. 


188 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


"  You  are  not  well,  dear  ?"  said  Mrs.  Davilow. 

"  No ;  that  chocolate  has  made  me  sick,"  said 
Gwendolen,  putting  up  her  hand  to  be  taken. 

"I  should  be  allowed  to  come  to  you  if  you 
were  ill,  darling,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow,  rather  timid- 
ly, as  she  pressed  the  hand  to  her  bosom.  Some- 
thing had  made  her  sure  to-day  that  her  child 
loved  her — needed  her  as  much  as  ever. 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Gwendolen,  leaning  her  head 
against  her  mother,  though  speaking  as  lightly  as 
she  could.  "  But  you  know  I  never  am  ill.  I  am 
as  strong  as  possible;  and  you  must  not  take  to 
fretting  about  me,  but  make  yourself  as  happy  as 
you  can  with  the  girls.  They  are  better  children 
to  you  than  I  have  been,  you  know."  She  turned 
up  her  face  with  a  smile. 

"  You  have  always  been  good,  my  darling.  I 
remember  nothing  else." 

"  Why,  what  did  I  ever  do  that  was  good  to 
you,  except  marry  Mr.  Grandcourt  ?"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, starting  up  with  a  desperate  resolve  to  be 
playful,  and  keep  no  more  on  the  perilous  edge 
of  agitation.  "  And  I  should  not  have  done  that 
unless  it  had  pleased  myself."  She  tossed  up 
her  chin,  and  reached  her  hat. 

"  God  forbid,  child !  I  would  not  have  had  you 
marry  for  my  sake.  Your  happiness  by  itself  is 
half  mine." 

"Very  well,"  said  Gwendolen,  arranging  her 
hat  fastidiously,  "  then  you  will  please  to  consid- 
er that  you  are  half  happy,  which  is  more  than  I 
am  used  to  seeing  you."  With  the  last  words 
she  again  turned  with  her  old  playful  smile  to 
her  mother.  "  Now  I  am  ready ;  but  oh,  mamma, 
Mr.  Grandcourt  gives  me  a  quantity  of  money, 
and  expects  me  to  spend  it,  and  I  can't  spend  it ; 
and  you  know  I  can't  bear  charity  children  and 
all  that ;  and  here  are  thirty  pounds.  I  wish  the 
girls  would  spend  it  for  me  on  little  things  for 
themselves  when  you  go  to  the  new  house.  Tell 
them  so."  Gwendolen  put  the  notes  into  her 
mother's  hand  and  looked  away  hastily,  moving 
toward  the  door. 

"  God  bless  you,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Davilow.  "  It 
will  please  them  so  that  you  should  have  thought 
of  them  in  particular." 

"  Oh,  they  are  troublesome  things ;  but  they 
don't  trouble  me  now,"  said  Gwendolen,  turning 
and  nodding  playfully.  She  hardly  understood 
her  own  feeling  in  this  act  toward  her  sisters,  but 
at  any  rate  she  did  not  wish  it  to  be  taken  as  any 
thing  serious.  She  was  glad  to  have  got  out  of 
the  bedroom  without  showing  more  signs  of  emo- 
tion, and  she  went  through  the  rest  of  her  visit 
and  all  the  good-by's  with  a  quiet  propriety  that 
made  her  say  to  herself  sarcastically  as  she  rode 
away,  "  I  think  I  am  making  a  very  good  Mrs. 
Grandcourt." 

She  believed  that  her  husband  was  gone  to 
Gadsmere  that  day — had  inferred  this,  as  she  had 
long  ago  inferred  who  were  the  inmates  of  what 
he  had  described  as  "  a  dog-hutch  of  a  place  in  a 
black  country ;"  and  the  strange  conflict  of  feel- 
ing within  her  had  had  the  characteristic  effect  of 
sending  her  to  Offendene  with  a  tightened  resolve 
— a  form  of  excitement  which  was  native  to  her. 

She  wondered  at  her  own  contradictions.  Why 
should  she  feel  it  bitter  to  her  that  Grandcourt 
showed  concern  for  the  beings  on  whose  account 
she  herself  was  undergoing  remorse?  Had  she 
not  before  her  marriage  inwardly  determined  to 
speak  and  act  on  their  behalf? — and  since  he 


had  lately  implied  that  he  wanted  to  be  in  town 
because  he  was  making  arrangements  about  his 
will,  she  ought  to  have  been  glad  of  any  sign  that 
he  kept  a  conscience  awake  toward  those  at  Gads- 
mere  ;  and  yet,  now  that  she  was  a  wife,  the  sense 
that  Grandcourt  was  gone  to  Gadsmere  was  like 
red  heat  near  a  burn.  She  had  brought  on  her- 
self this  indignity  in  her  own  eyes — this  humilia- 
tion of  being  doomed  to  a  terrified  silence  lest  her 
husband  should  discover  with  what  sort  of  con- 
sciousness she  had  married  him ;  and,  as  she  had 
said  to  Deronda,  she  "  must  go  on."  After  the 
intensest  moments  of  secret  hatred  toward  this 
husband  who  from  the  very  first  had  cowed  her, 
there  always  came  back  the  spiritual  pressure 
which  made  submission  inevitable.  There  was 
no  effort  at  freedom  that  would  not  bring  fresh 
and  worse  humiliation.  Gwendolen  could  dare 
nothing  except  in  impulsive  action — least  of  all 
could  she  dare  premeditatedly  a  vague  future  in 
which  the  only  certain  condition  was  indignity. 
In  spite  of  remorse,  it  still  seemed  the  worst  result 
of  her  marriage  that  she  should  in  any  way  make 
a  spectacle  of  herself ;  and  her  humiliation  was 
lightened  by  her  thinking  that  only  Mrs.  Glasher 
was  aware  of  the  fact  which  caused  it.  For 
Gwendolen  had  never  referred  the  interview  at 
the  Whispering  Stones  to  Lush's  agency ;  her  dis- 
position to  vague  terror  investing  with  shadowy 
omnipresence  any  threat  of  fatal  power  over  her, 
and  so  hindering  her  from  imagining  plans  and 
channels  by  which  news  had  been  conveyed  to 
the  woman  who  had  the  poisoning  skill  of  a  sor- 
ceress. To  Gwendolen's  mind  the  secret  lay  with 
Mrs.  Glasher,  and  there  were  words  in  the  hor- 
rible letter  which  implied  that  Mrs.  Glasher  would 
dread  disclosure  to  the  husband,  as  much  as  the 
usurping  Mrs.  Grandcourt. 

Something  else,  too,  she  thought  of  as  more  of 
a  secret  from  her  husband  than  it  really  was — 
namely,  that  suppressed  struggle  of  desperate  re- 
bellion which  she  herself  dreaded.  Grandcourt 
could  not,  indeed,  fully  imagine  how  things  affect- 
ed Gwendolen:  he  had  no  imagination  of  any 
thing  in  her  but  what  affected  the  gratification 
of  his  own  will ;  but  on  this  point  he  had  the 
sensibility  which  seems  like  divination.  What 
we  see  exclusively  we  are  apt  to  see  with  some 
mistake  ^proportions  ;  and  Grandcourt  was  not 
likely  to  be  infallible  in  his  judgments  concerning 
this  wife  who  was  governed  by  many  shadowy 
powers,  to  him  non-existent.  He  magnified  her 
inward  resistance,  but  that  did  not  lessen  his  sat- 
isfaction in  the  mastery  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

Behold  my  lady's  carriage  stop  the  way. 
With  powdered  lackey  and  with  champing  bay. 
She  sweeps  the  matting,  treads  the  crimson  stair, 
Her  arduous  function  noluly  "to  be  there. '' 
Like  Sirius  rising  o'er  the  silent  sea, 
She  hides  her  heart  in  lustre  loftily. 

So  the  Grandcourts  were  in  Grosvenor  Square 
in  time  to  receive  a  card  for  the  musical  party  at 
Lady  Mallinger's,  there  being  reasons  of  business 
which  made  Sir  Hugo  know  beforehand  that  his 
ill-beloved  nephew  was  coming  up.  It  was  only 
the  third  evening  after  their  arrival,  and  Gwen- 
dolen made  rather  an  absent-minded  acquaint- 
ance with  her  new  ceilings  and  furniture,  preoc- 
cupied with  the  certainty  that  she  was  going  to 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


189 


speak  to  Deronda  again,  and  also  to  see  the  Miss 
Lapidoth  who  had  gone  through  so  much,  and 
was  "  capable  of  submitting  to  any  thing  in  the 
form  of  duty."  For  Gwendolen  had  remembered 
nearly  every  word  that  Deronda  had  said  about 
Mirah,  and  especially  that  phrase,  which  she  re- 
peated to  herself  bitterly,  having  an  ill-defined 
consciousness  that  her  own  submission  was  some- 
thing very  different.  She  would  have  been  obliged 
to  allow,  if  any  one  had  said  it  to  her,  that  what 
she  submitted  to  could  not  take  the  shape  of 
duty,  but  was  submission  to  a  yoke  drawn  on  her 
by  an  action  she  was  ashamed  of,  and  worn  with 
a  strength  of  selfish  motives  that  left  no  weight 
for  duty  to  carry. 

The  drawing-rooms  in  Park  Lane,  all  white, 
gold,  and  pale  crimson,  were  agreeably  furnished, 
and  not  crowded  with  guests  before  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Grandcourt  entered ;  and  more  than  half  an  hour 
of  instrumental  music  was  being  followed  by  an 
interval  of  movement  and  chat.  Klesmer  was 
there  with  his  wife,  and  in  his  generous  interest 
for  Mirah  he  proposed  to  accompany  her  singing 
of  Leo's  "  0  patria  mia"  which  he  had  before 
recommended  her  to  choose,  as  more  distinctive 
of  her  than  better-known  music.  He  was  already 
at  the  piano,  and  Mirah  was  standing  there  con- 
spicuously, when  Gwendolen,  magnificent  in  her 
pale  green  velvet  and  poisoned  diamonds,  was 
ushered  to  a  seat  of  honor  well  in  view  of  them. 
With  her  long  sight  and  self-command,  she  had 
the  rare  power  of  quickly  distinguishing  persons 
and  objects  on  entering  a  full  room,  and  while 
turning  her  glance  toward  Mirah,  she  did  not 
neglect  to  exchange  a  bow  and  smile  with  Kles- 
mer as  she  passed.  The  smile  seemed  to  each  a 
lightning  flash  back  on  that  morning  when  it 
had  been  her  ambition  to  stand  as  the  "little 
Jewess"  was  standing,  and  survey  a  grand  au- 
dience from  the  higher  rank  of  her  talent — in- 
stead of  which  she  was  one  of  the  ordinary  crowd 
in  silk  and  gems,  whose  utmost  performance  it 
must  be  to  admire  or  find  fault.  "  He  thinks  I 
am  in  the  right  road  now,"  said  the  lurking  re- 
sentment within  her. 

Gwendolen  had  not  caught  sight  of  Deronda  in 
her  passage,  and  while  she  was  seated  acquitting 
herself  in  chat  with  Sir  Hugo,  she  glanced  round 
her  with  careful  ease,  bowing  a  recognition  here 
and  there,  and  fearful  lest  an  anxious-looking 
exploration  in  search  of  Deronda  might  be  ob- 
served by  her  husband,  and  afterward  rebuked  as 
something  "  damnably  vulgar."  But  all  travel- 
ing, even  that  of  a  slow  gradual  glance  round  a 
room,  brings  a  liability  to  undesired  encounters, 
and  among  the  eyes  that  met  Gwendolen's,  forcing 
her  into  a  slight  bow,  were  those  of  the  "ama- 
teur too  fond  of  Meyerbeer,"  Mr.  Lush,  whom 
Sir  Hugo  continued  to  find  useful  as  a  half-caste 
among  gentlemen.  He  was  standing  near  her 
husband,  who,  however,  turned  a  shoulder  toward 
him,  and  was  being  understood  to  listen  to  Lord 
Pentreath.  How  was  it  that  at  this  moment,  for 
the  first  time,  there  darted  through  Gwendolen, 
like  a  disagreeable  sensation,  the  idea  that  this 
man  knew  all  about  her  husband's  life  ?  He  had 
been  banished  from  her  sight,  according  to  her 
will,  and  she  had  been  satisfied;  he  had  sunk 
entirely  into  the  background  of  her  thoughts, 
screened  away  from  her  by  the  agitating  figures 
that  kept  up  an  inward  drama  in  which  Lush 
had  no  place.  Here  suddenly  he  re-appeared  at 


her  husband's  elbow,  and  there  sprang  up  in  her, 
like  an  instantaneously  fabricated  memory  in  a 
dream,  the  sense  of  his  being  connected  with  the 
secrets  that  made  her  wretched.  She  was  con- 
scious of  effort  in  turning  her  head  away  from 
him,  trying  to  continue  her  wandering  survey 
as  if  she  had  seen  nothing  of  more  consequence 
than  the  picture  on  the  wall,  till  she  discovered 
Deronda.  But  he  was  not  looking  toward  her, 
and  she  withdrew  her  eyes  from  him  without 
having  got  any  recognition,  consoling  herself  with 
the  assurance  that  he  must  have  seen  her  come 
in.  In  fact,  he  was  standing  not  far  from  the 
door  with  Hans  Meyrick,  whom  he  had  been  care- 
ful to  bring  into  Lady  Mallinger's  list.  They 
were  both  a  little  more  anxious  than  was  com- 
fortable lest  Mirah  should  not  be  heard  to  advan- 
tage. Deronda  even  felt  himself  on  the  brink  of 
betraying  emotion,  Mirah's  presence  now  being 
linked  with  crowding  images  of  what  had  gone 
before  and  was  to  come  after — all  centring  in 
the  brother  whom  he  was  soon  to  reveal  to  her ; 
and  he  had  escaped  as  soon  as  he  could  from  the 
side  of  Lady  Pentreath,  who  had  said,  hi  her  vio- 
loncello voice, 

"  Well,  your  Jewess  is  pretty — there's  no  de- 
nying that.  But  where  is  her  Jewish  impudence  ? 
She  looks  as  demure  as  a  nun.  I  suppose  she 
learned  that  on  the  stage." 

He  was  beginning  to  feel  on  Mirah's  behalf 
something  of  what  he  had  felt  for  himself  in  his 
seraphic  boyish  time,  when  STr  Hugo  asked  him 
if  he  would  like  to  be  a  great  singer — an  indig- 
nant dislike  to  her  being  remarked  on  in  a  free 
and  easy  way,  as  if  she  were  an  imported  com- 
modity disdainfully  paid  for  by  the  fashionable 
public ;  and  he  winced  the  more  because  Morde- 
cai,  he  knew,  would  feel  that  the  name  "  Jewess" 
was  taken  as  a  sort  of  stamp  like  the  lettering  of 
Chinese  silk.  In  this  susceptible  mood  he  saw 
the  Grandcourts  enter,  and  was  immediately  ap- 
pealed to  by  Hans  about  "  that  Vandyck  duchess 
of  a  beauty."  Pray  excuse  Deronda  that  in  this 
moment  he  felt  a  transient  renewal  of  his  first 
repulsion  from  Gwendolen,  as  if  she  and  her 
beauty  and  her  failings  were  to  blame  for  the 
undervaluing  of  Mirah  as  a  woman — a  feeling 
something  like  class  animosity,  which  affection 
for  what  is  not  fully  recognized"  by  others,  wheth- 
er in  persons  or  in  poetry,  rarely  allows  us  to 
escape.  To  Hans,  admiring  Gwendolen  with  his 
habitual  hyperbole,  he  answered,  with  a  sarcasm 
that  was  not  quite  good-humored, 

"  I  thought  you  could  admire  no  style  of  wom- 
an but  your  Berenice." 

1  That  is  the  style  I  worship— not  admire,"  said 
Hans.  "  Other  styles  of  woman  I  might  make 
myself  wicked  for,  but  for  Berenice  I  could  make 
myself — well,  pretty  good,  which  is  something 
much  more  difficult." 

"  Hush !"  said  Deronda,  under  the  pretext  that 
the  singing  was  going  to  begin.  He  was  not  so 
delighted  with  the  answer  as  might  have  been 
expected,  and  was  relieved  by  Hans's  movement 
to  a  more  advanced  spot. 

Deronda  had  never  before  heard  Mirah  sing 
'  0  patria  mia."  He  knew  well  Leopardi's  fine 
Ode  to  Italy  (when  Italy  sat  like  a  disconsolate 
mother  in  chains,  hiding  her  face  on  her  knees 
and  weeping),  and  the  few  selected  words  were 
filled  for  him  with  the  grandeur  of  the  whole, 
which  seemed  to  breathe  as  inspiration  through 


190 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


the  music.  Mirah  singing  this,  made  Mordecai 
more  than  ever  one  presence  with  her.  Certain 
words  not  included  in  the  song  nevertheless  rang 
within  Deronda  as  harmonies  from  one  invisible — 
"  JVbn  ti  di/ende 

Nessun  de'  tuoit    L'  armi.  qua,  V  armi;  io  solo 

Combattero,  procombero  sol  to"* — 

they  seemed  the  very  voice  of  that  heroic  pas- 
sion which  is  falsely  said  to  devote  itself  in  vain 
when  it  achieves  the  godlike  end  of  manifesting 
unselfish  love.  And  that  passion  was  present  to 
Deronda  now  as  the  vivid  image  of  a  man  dying 
helplessly  away  from  the  possibility  of  battle. 

Mirah  was  equal  to  his  wishes.  While  the 
general  applause  was  sounding,  Klesmer  gave  a 
more  valued  testimony,  audible  to  her  only — 
"  Good,  good — the  crescendo  better  than  before." 
But  her  chief  anxiety  was  to  know  that  she  had 
satisfied  Mr.  Deronda:  any  failure  on  her  part 
this  evening  would  have  pained  her  as  an  espe- 
cial injury  to  him.  Of  course  all  her  prospects 
were  due  to  what  he  had  done  for  her ;  still,  this 
occasion  of  singing  in  the  house  that  was  his 
home  brought  a  peculiar  demand.  She  looked 
toward  him  in  the  distance,  and  he  could  see  that 
she  did;  but  he  remained  where  he  was,  and 
watched  the  stream  of  emulous  admirers  closing 
round  her,  till  presently  they  parted  to  make  way 
for  Gwendolen,  who  was  taken  up  to  be  introduced 
by  Mrs.  Klesmer.  Easier  now  about  "the  little 
Jewess,"  Daniel  relented  toward  poor  Gwendolen 
in  her  splendor,  and  his  memory  went  back,  with 
some  penitence  for  his  momentary  hardness,  over 
all  the  signs  and  confessions  that  she  too  needed 
a  rescue,  and  one  much  more  difficult  than  that 
of  the  wanderer  by  the  river — a  rescue  for  which 
he  felt  himself  helpless.  The  silent  question, 
"  But  is  it  not  cowardly  to  make  that  a  reason 
for  turning  away?"  was  the  form  in  which  he 
framed  his  resolve  to  go  near  her  on  the  first  op- 
portunity, and  show  his  regard  for  her  past  con- 
fidence, in  spite  of  Sir  Hugo's  unwelcome  hints. 

Klesmer,  having  risen  to  Gwendolen  as  she  ap- 
proached, and  being  included  by  her  in  the  open- 
ing conversation  with  Mirah,  continued  near  them 
a  little  while,  looking  down  with  a  smile,  which 
was  rather  in  his  eyes  than  on  his  lips,  at  the 
piquant  contrast  of  the  two  charming  young  creat- 
ures seated  on  the  red  divan.  The  solicitude 
seemed  to  be  all  on  the  side  of  the  splendid  one. 

"  You  must  let  me  say  how  much  I  am  obliged 
to  you,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I  had  heard  from 
Mr.  Deronda  that  I  should  have  a  great  treat  in 
your  singing,  but  I  was  too  ignorant  to  imagine 
how  great." 

"  You  are  very  good  to  say  so,"  answered  Mi- 
rah, her  mind  chiefly  occupied  in  contemplating 
Gwendolen.  It  was  like  a  new  kind  of  stage  ex- 
perience to  her  to  be  close  to  genuine  grand  la- 
dies with  genuine  brilliants  and  complexions,  and 
they  impressed  her  vaguely  as  coming  out  of 
some  unknown  drama,  in  which  their  parts  per- 
haps got  more  tragic  as  they  went  on. 

"  We  shall  all  want  to  learn  of  you— I,  at  least," 
said  Gwendolen.  "I  sing  very  badly,  as  Herr 
Klesmer  will  tell  you" — here  she  glanced  upward 
to  that  higher  power  rather  archly,  and  continued 
— "  but  I  have  been  rebuked  for  not  liking  to  be 
middling,  since  I  can  be  nothing  more.  I  think 


•  Do  none  of  thy  children  defend  thee?    Arms! 
bring  me  arms !  alone  I  will  fight,  alone  I  will  fall. 


that  is  a  different  doctrine  from  yours  ?"  She 
was  still  looking  at  Klesmer,  who  said,  quickly, 

"Not  if  it  means  that  it  would  be'worth  while 
for  you  to  study  further,  and  for  Miss  Lapidoth  to 
have  the  pleasure  of  helping  you."  With  that  he 
moved  away,  and  Mirah,  taking  every  thing  with 
naive  seriousness,  said, 

"  If  you  think  I  could  teach  you,  I  shall  be  very 
glad.  I  am  anxious  to  teach,  but  I  have  only  just 
begun.  If  I  do  it  well,  it  must  be  by  remember- 
ing how  my  master  taught  me." 

Gwendolen  was  in  reality  too  uncertain  about 
herself  to  be  prepared  for  this  simple  prompti- 
tude of  Mirah's,  and  in  her  wish  to  change  the 
subject  said,  with  some  lapse  from  the  good  taste 
of  her  first  address, 

"  You  have  not  been  long  in  London,  I  think  ? 
— but  you  were  perhaps  introduced  to  Mr.  Deron- 
da abroad  ?" 

"  No,"  said  Mirah ;  "  I  never  saw  him  before  I 
came  to  England  in  the  summer." 

"But  he  has  seen  you  often  and  heard  you 
sing  a  great  deal,  has  he  not  ?"  said  Gwendolen, 
led  on  partly  by  the  wish  to  hear  any  thing  about 
Deronda,  and  partly  by  the  awkwardness  which 
besets  the  readiest  person  in  carrying  on  a  dia- 
logue when  empty  of  matter.  "  He  spoke  of  you 
to  me  with  the  highest  praise.  He  seemed  to 
know  you  quite  well." 

"  Oh,  I  was  poor,  and  needed  help,"  said  Mirah, 
in  a  new  tone  of  feeling,  "  and  Mr.  Deronda  has 
given  me  the  best  friends  in  the  world.  That  is 
the  only  way  he  came  to  know  any  thing  about 
me — because  he  was  sorry  for  me.  I  had  no 
friends  when  I  came.  I  was  in  distress.  I  owe 
every  thing  to  him." 

Poor  Gwendolen,  who  had  wanted  to  be  a  strug- 
gling artist  herself,  could  nevertheless  not  escape 
the  impression  that  a  mode  of  inquiry  which 
would  have  been  rather  rude  toward  herself  was 
an  amiable  condescension  to  this  Jewess  who 
was  ready  to  give  her  lessons.  The  only  effect 
on  Mirah,  as  always  on  any  mention  of  Deronda, 
was  to  stir  reverential  gratitude  and  anxiety  that 
she  should  be  understood  to  have  the  deepest  ob- 
ligation to  him. 

But  both  he  and  Hans,  who  were  noticing  the 
pair  from  a  distance,  would  have  felt  rather  in- 
dignant if  they  had  known  that  the  conversation 
had  led  up  to  Mirah's  representation  of  herself  in 
this  light  of  ncediness.  In  the  movement  that 
prompted  her,  however,  there  was  an  exquisite 
delicacy,  which  perhaps  she  could  not  have  stated 
explicitly — the  feeling  that  she  ought  not  to  allow 
any  one  to  assume  in  Deronda  a  relation  of  more 
equality  or  less  generous  interest  toward  her  than 
actually  existed.  Her  answer  was  delightful  to 
Gwendolen :  she  thought  of  nothing  but  the  ready 
compassion,  which  in  another  form  she  had  trust- 
ed in  and  found  for  herself ;  and  on  the  signals 
that  Klesmer  was  about  to  play,  she  moved  away 
in  much  content,  entirely  without  presentiment 
that  this  Jewish  protegee  would  ever  make  a  more 
important  difference  in  her  life  than  the  possible 
improvement  of  her  singing — if  the  leisure  and 
spirits  of  a  Mrs.  Grandcourt  would  allow  of  other 
lessons  than  such  as  the  world  was  giving  her  at 
rather  a  high  charge. 

With  her  wonted  alternation  from  resolute  cnre 
of  appearances  to  some  rash  indulgence  of  an 
impulse,  she  chose,  under  the  pretext  of  getting 
farther  from  the  instrument,  not  to  go  again  to  her 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


191 


former  seat,  but  placed  herself  on  a  settee  where 
she  could  only  have  one  neighbor.  She  was  near- 
er to  Deronda  than  before :  was  it  surprising  that 
he  came  up  in  time  to  shake  hands  before  the 
music  began — then,  that  after  he  had  stood  a  lit- 
tle while  by  the  elbow  of  the  settee  at  the  empty 
end,  the  torrent-like  confluences  of  bass  and  treble 
seemed,  like  a  convulsion  of  nature,  to  cast  the 
conduct  of  petty  mortals  into  insignificance,  and 
to  warrant  his  sitting  down  ? 

But  when  at  the  end  of  Klesmer's  playing  there 
came  the  outburst  of  talk  under  which  Gwendolen 
had  hoped  to  speak  as  she  would  to  Deronda,  she 
observed  that  Mr.  Lush  was  within  hearing,  lean- 
ing against  the  wall  close  by  them.  She  could 
not  help  her  flush  of  anger,  but  she  tried  to  have 
only  an  air  of  polite  indifference  in  saying, 

"  Miss  Lapidoth  is  every  thing  you  described 
her  to  be." 

"You  have  been  very  quick  in  discovering 
that,"  said  Deronda,  ironically. 

"  I  have  not  found  out  all  the  excellences  you 
spoke  of — I  don't  mean  that,"  said  Gwendolen ; 
"  but  I  think  her  singing  is  charming,  and  herself 
too.  Her  face  is  lovely — not  in  the  least  com- 
mon; and  she  is  such  a  complete  little  person. 
I  should  think  she  will  be  a  great  success." 

This  speech  was  grating  to  Deronda,  and  he 
would  not  answer  it,  but  looked  gravely  before 
him.  She  knew  that  he  was  displeased  with  her, 
and  she  was  getting  so  impatient  under  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Mr.  Lush,  which  prevented  her  from 
saying  any  word  she  wanted  to  say,  that  she  med- 
itated some  desperate  step  to  get  rid  of  it,  and 
remained  silent  too.  That  constraint  seemed  to 
last  a  long  while,  neither  Gwendolen  nor  Deronda 
looking  at  the  other,  till  Lush  slowly  relieved  the 
wall  of  his  weight,  and  joined  some  one  at  a 
distance. 

Gwendolen  immediately  said, "  You  despise  me 
for  talking  artificially." 

"  No,"  said  Deronda,  looking  at  her  coolly ;  "  I 
think  that  is  quite  excusable  sometimes.  But  I 
did  not  think  what  you  were  last  saying  was  alto- 
gether artificial." 

"There  was  something  in  it  that  displeased 
you,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  What  was  it  ?" 

"  It  is  impossible  to  explain  such  things,"  said 
Deronda.  "  One  can  never  communicate  niceties 
of  feeling  about  words  and  manner." 

"  You  think  I  am  shut  out  from  understanding 
them,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  slight  tremor  in  her 
voice,  which  she  was  trying  to  conquer.  "  Have 
I  shown  myself  so  very"  dense  to  every  thing  you 
have  said  ?"  There  was  an  indescribable  look  of 
suppressed  tears  in  her  eyes,  which  were  turned 
on  him, 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Deronda,  with  some  soften- 
ing of  voice.  "  But  experience  differs  for  differ- 
ent people.  We  don't  all  wince  at  the  same  things. 
I  have  had  plenty  of  proof  that  you  are  not  dense." 
He  smiled  at  her. 

"But  one  may  feel  things  and  not  be  able  to  do 
any  thing  better  for  all  that,"  said  Gwendolen,  not 
smiling  in  return — the  distance  to  which  Deron- 
da's  words  seemed  to  throw  her  chilling  her  too 
much.  "  I  begin  to  think  we  can  only  get  better 
by  having  people  about  us  who  raise  good  feel- 
ings. You  must  not  be  surprised  at  any  thing  in 
me.  I  think  it  is  too  late  for  me  to  alter.  I 
don't  know  how  to  set  about  being  wise,  as  you 
told  me  to  be." 


"  I  seldom  find  I  do  any  good  by  my  preaching. 
I  might  as  well  have  kept  from  meddling,"  said 
Deronda,  thinking  rather  sadly  that  his  interfer- 
ence about  that  unfortunate  necklace  might  end 
in  nothing  but  an  added  pain  to  him  in  seeing 
her,  after  all,  hardened  to  another  sort  of  gam- 
bling than  roulette. 

"  Don't  say  that,"  said  Gwendolen,  hurriedly, 
feeling  that  this  might  be  her  only  chance  of  get- 
ting the  words  uttered,  and  dreading  the  increase 
of  her  own  agitation.  "  If  you  despair  of  me,  I 
shall  despair.  Your  saying  that  I  should  not  go 
on  being  selfish  and  ignorant  has  been  some 
strength  to  me.  If  you  say  you  wish  you  had 
not  meddled — that  means,  you  despair  of  me  and 
forsake  me.  And  then  you  will  decide  for  me 
that  I  shall  not  be  good.  It  is  you  who  will  de- 
cide, because  you  might  have  made  me  different 
by  keeping  as  near  to  me  as  you  could,  and  be- 
lieving in  me." 

She  had  not  been  looking  at  him  as  she  spoke, 
but  at  the  handle  of  the  fan  which  she  held  closed. 
With  the  last  words  she  rose  and  left  him,  return- 
ing to  her  former  place,  which  had  been  left  vacant ; 
while  every  one  was  settling  into  quietude  in  ex- 
pectation of  Mirah's  voice,  which  presently,  with 
that  wonderful,  searching  quality  of  subdued  song 
in  which  the  melody  seems  simply  an  effect  of  the 
emotion,  gave  forth,  "Perpietd  non  dirmi  addio." 

In  Deronda's  ear  the  strain  was  for  the  moment 
a  continuance  of  Gwendolen's  pleading — a  painful 
urging  of  something  vague  and  difficult,  irrecon- 
cilable with  pressing  conditions,  and  yet  cruel  to 
resist.  However  strange  the  mixture  in  her  of  a 
resolute  pride  and  a  precocious  air  of  knowing  the 
world,  with  a  precipitate,  guileless  indiscretion,  he 
was  quite  sure  now  that  the  mixture  existed.  Sir 
Hugo's  hints  had  made  him  alive  to  dangers  that 
his  own  disposition  might  have  neglected;  but 
that  Gwendolen's  reliance  on  him  was  unvisited 
by  any  dream  of  his  being  a  man  who  could  mis- 
interpret her  was  as  manifest  as  morning,  and 
made  an  appeal  which  wrestled  with  his  sense  of 
present  dangers,  and  with  his  foreboding  of  a 
growing  incompatible  claim  on  him  in  her  mind. 
There  was  a  foreshadowing  of  some  painful  col- 
lision :  on  the  one  side  the  grasp  of  Mordecai'a 
dying  hand  on  him,  with  all  the  ideals  and  pros- 
pects it  aroused ;  on  the  other  this  fair  creature  in 
silk  and  gems,  with  her  hidden  wound  and  her 
self-dread,  making  a  trustful  effort  to  lean  and 
find  herself  sustained.  It  was  as  if  he  had  a  vision 
of  himself  besought  with  outstretched  arms  and 
cries,  while  he  was  caught  by  the  waves  and  com- 
pelled to  mount  the  vessel  bound  for  a  far-off 
coast.  That  was  the  strain  of  excited  feeling  in 
him  that  went  along  with  the  notes  of  Mirah's 
song ;  but  when  it  ceased  he  moved  from  his  seat 
with  the  reflection  that  he  had  been  falling  into  an 
exaggeration  of  his  own  importance,  and  a  ridicu- 
lous readiness  to  accept  Gwendolen's  view  of  him- 
self, as  if  he  could  really  have  any  decisive  power 
over  her. 

"  What  an  enviable  fellow  you  are,"  said  Hans 
to  him,  "  sitting  on  a  sofa  with  that  young  duchess, 
and  having  an  interesting  quarrel  with  her !" 

"  Quarrel  with  her?"  repeated  Deronda,  rather 
uncomfortably. 

"  Oh,  about  theology,  of  course ;  nothing  per- 
sonal. But  she  told  you  what  you  ought  to  think, 
and  then  left  you  with  a  grand  air  which  was  ad- 
mirable. Is  she  an  Antinomian  ? — if  so,  tell  her 


192 


DANIEL   DEROXDA. 


I  am  an  Antinomian  painter,  and  introduce  me. 
I  should  like  to  paint  her  and  her  husband.  He 
has  the  sort  of  handsome  physique  that  the  Duke 
ought  to  have  in  Lucrezia  Borgia — if  it  could  go 
with  a  fine  barytone,  which  it  can't." 

Deronda  devoutly  hoped  that  Hans's  account 
of  the  impression  his  dialogue  with  Gwendolen 
had  made  on  a  distant  beholder  was  no  more  than 
a  bit  of  fantastic  representation,  such  as  was  com- 
mon with  him. 

And  Gwendolen  was  not  without  her  after- 
thoughts that  her  husband's  eyes  might  have 
been  on  her,  extracting  something  to  reprove — 
some  offense  against  her  dignity  as  his  wife ;  her 
consciousness  telling  her  that  she  had  not  kept 
up  the  perfect  air  of  equability  in  public  which 
was  her  own  ideal.  But  Grandcourt  made  no 
observation  on  her  behavior.  All  he  said  as  they 
were  driving  home  was, 

"  Lush  will  dine  with  us  among  the  other  peo- 
ple to-morrow.  You  will  treat  him  civilly." 

Gwendolen's  heart  began  to  beat  violently. 
The  words  that  she  wanted  to  utter,  as  one  wants 
to  return  a  blow,  were,  "  You  are  breaking  your 
promise  to  me — the  first  promise  you  made  me." 
But  she  dared  not  utter  them.  She  was  as  fright- 
ened at  a  quarrel  as  if  she  had  foreseen  that  it 
would  end  with  throttling  fingers  on  her  neck. 
After  a  pause,  she  said,  in  the  tone  rather  of  de- 
feat than  resentment, 

"  I  thought  you  did  not  intend  him  to  frequent 
the  house  again." 

"  I  want  him  just  now.  He  is  useful  to  me ; 
and  he  must  be  treated  civilly." 

Silence.  There  may  come  a  moment  when  even 
an  excellent  husband  who  has  dropped  smoking 
under  more  or  less  of  a  pledge  during  courtship, 
for  the  first  time  will  introduce  his  cigar  smoke 
between  himself  and  his  wife,  with  the  tacit  un- 
derstanding that  she  will  have  to  put  up  with  it. 
Mr.  Lush  was,  so  to  speak,  a  very  large  cigar. 

If  these  are  the  sort  of  lovers'  vows  at  which 
Jove  laughs,  he  must  have  a  merry  time  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XL VI. 

"If  any  one  should  importune  me  to  giv 
why  I  loved  him,  I  feel  It  could  no  otherwise  be  ex- 
pressed than  by  making  answer, '  Because  it  was  be ; 
because  it  was  I.'  There  Is.  beyond  what  I  am  able  to 
say,  I  know  not  what  inexplicable  and  inevitable  pow- 
er that  brought  on  this  union."  —  MONTAIGNE:  On 
Friendship. 

THE  time  had  come  to  prepare  Mordecai  for 
the  revelation  of  the  restored  sister  and  for  the 
change  of  abode  which  was  desirable  before  Mi- 
rah's  meeting  with  her  brother.  Mrs.  Meyrick,  to 
whom  Deronda  had  confided  every  thing  except 
Mordecai's  peculiar  relation  to  himself,  had  been 
active  in  helping  him  to  find  a  suitable  lodging  in 
Brompton,  not  many  minutes'  walk  from  her  own 
house,  so  that  the  brother  and  sister  would  be 
within  reach  of  her  motherly  care.  Her  happy 
mixture  of  Scottish  caution  with  her  Scottish  fer- 
vor and  Gallic  liveliness  had  enabled  her  to  keep 
the  secret  close  from  the  girls  as  well  as  from 
Hans,  any  betrayal  to  them  being  likely  to  reach 
Mirah  in  some  way  that  would  raise  an  agitating 
suspicion,  and  spoil  the  important  opening  of 
that  work  which  was  to  secure  her  independence 
— as  we  rather  arbitrarily  call  one  of  the  more 
arduous  and  dignified  forms  of  our  dependence. 


And  both  Mrs.  Meyrick  and  Deronda  had  more 
reasons  than  they  could  have  expressed  for  desir- 
ing that  Mirah  should  be  able  to  maintain  herself. 
Perhaps  "  the  little  mother"  was  rather  helped  in 
her  secrecy  by  some  dubiousness  in  her  sentiment 
about  the  remarkable  brother  described  to  her; 
and  certainly,  if  she  felt  any  joy  and  anticipatory 
admiration,  it  was  due  to  her  faith  in  Deronda's 
judgment.  The  consumption  was  a  sorrowful 
fact  that  appealed  to  her  tenderness;  but  how 
was  she  to  be  very  glad  of  an  enthusiasm  which, 
to  tell  the  truth,  she  could  only  contemplate  as 
Jewish  pertinacity,  and  as  rather  an  undesirable 
introduction  among  them  all  of  a  man  whose 
conversation  would  not  be  more  modern  and  en- 
couraging than  that  of  Scott's  Covenanters  ?  Her 
mind  was  any  thing  but  prosaic,  and  she  had  her 
soberer  share  of  Mab's  delight  in  the  romance  of 
Mirah's  story  and  of  her  abode  with  them ;  but 
the  romantic  or  unusual  in  real  life  requires  some 
adaptation.  We  sit  up  at  night  to  read  about 
Cakya-Mouni,  Saint  Francis,  or  Oliver  Cromwell ; 
but  whether  we  should  be  glad  for  any  one  at  all 
like  them  to  call  on  us  the  next  morning,  still 
more,  to  reveal  himself  as  a  new  relation,  is 
quite  another  affair.  Besides,  Mrs.  Meyrick  had 
hoped,  as  her  children  did,  that  the  intensity  of 
Mirah's  feeling  about  Judaism  would  slowly  sub- 
side, and  be  merged  in  the  gradually  deepening 
current  of  loving  interchange  with  her  new  friends. 
In  fact,  her  secret  favorite  continuation  of  the  ro- 
mance had  been  no  discovery  of  Jewish  relations, 
but  something  much  more  favorable  to  the  hopes 
she  discerned  in  Hans.  And  now — here  was  a 
brother  who  would  dip  Mirah's  mind  over  again 
in  the  deepest  dye  of  Jewish  sentiment.  She 
could  not  help  saying  to  Deronda : 

"I  am  as  glad  as  you  are  that  the -pawnbroker 
is  not  her  brother :  there  are  Ezras  and  Ezras  in 
the  world ;  and  really  it  is  a  comfort  to  think  that 
all  Jews  are  not  like  those  shop-keepers  who  will 
not  let  you  get  out  of  their  shops ;  and  besides, 
what  he  said  to  you  about  his  mother  and  sister 
makes  me  bless  him.  I  am  sure  he's  good.  But 
I  never  did  like  any  thing  fanatical.  I  suppose 
I  heard  a  little  too  much  preaching  in  my  youth, 
and  lost  my  palate  for  it." 

"  I  don't  think  you  will  find  that  Mordecai  ob- 
trudes any  preaching,"  said  Deronda.  "  He  is  not 
what  I  should  call  fanatical.  I  call  a  man  fanat- 
ical when  his  enthusiasm  is  narrow  and  hood- 
winked, so  that  he  has  no  sense  of  proportions, 
and  becomes  unjust  and  unsympathetic  to  men 
who  are  out  of  his  own  track.  Mordecai  is  an 
enthusiast:  I  should  like  to  keep  that  word  for 
the  highest  order  of  minds — those  who  care  su- 
premely for  grand  and  general  benefits  to  man- 
kind. He  is  not  a  strictly  orthodox  Jew,  and  is 
full  of  allowances  for  others :  his  conformity  in 
many  things  is  an  allowance  for  the  condition  of 
other  Jews.  The  people  he  lives  with  are  as  fond 
of  him  as  possible,  and  they  can't  in  the  least  un- 
derstand his  ideas." 

"  Oh,  well,  I  can  live  up  to  the  level  of  the 
pawnbroker's  mother,  and  like  him  for  what  I 
see  to  be  good  in  him ;  and  for  what  I  don't  see 
the  merits  of,  I  will  take  your  word.  According 
to  your  definition,  I  suppose  one  might  be  fanat- 
ical in  worshiping  common-sense;  for  my  hus- 
band used  to  say  the  world  would  be  a  poor  place 
if  there  were  nothing  but  common-sense  in  it. 
However,  Mirah's  brother  will  have  good  bedding 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


193 


— that  I  have  taken  care  of;  and  I  shall  have 
this  extra  window  pasted  up  with  paper  to  pre- 
vent draughts."  (The  conversation  was  taking 
place  in  the  destined  lodging.)  "  It  is  a  comfort  to 
think  that  the  people  of  the  house  are  no  stran- 
gers to  me — no  hypocritical  harpies.  And  when 
the  children  know,  we  shall  be  able  to  make  the 
rooms  much  prettier." 

"  The  next  stage  of  the  affair  is  to  tell  all  to 
Mordecai,  and  get  him  to  move — which  may  be  a 
•  more  difficult  business,"  said  Deronda. 

"  And  will  you  tell  Mirah  before  I  say  any  thing 
to  the  children?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  But  De- 
ronda hesitated,  and  she  went  on  in  a  tone  of  per- 
suasive deliberation :  "  No,  I  think  not.  Let  me 
tell  Hans  and  the  girls  the  evening  before,  and 
they  will  be  away  the  next  morning." 

"  Yes,  that  will  be  best.  But  do  justice  to  my 
account  of  Mordecai — or  Ezra,  as  I  suppose  Mirah 
will  wish  to  call  him  :  don't  assist  their  imagina- 
tion by  referring  to  Habakkuk  Mucklewrath," 
said  Deronda,  smiling — Mrs.  Meyrick  herself  hav- 
ing used  the  comparison  of  the  Covenanters. 

"  Trust  me,  trust  me,"  said  the  little  mother. 
"I  shall  have  to  persuade  them  so  hard  to  be 
glad,  that  I  shall  convert  myself.  When  I  am 
frightened,  I  find  it  a  good  thing  to  have  some- 
body to  be  angry  with  for  not  being  brave :  it 
warms  the  blood." 

Deronda  might  have  been  more  argumentative 
or  persuasive  about  the  view  to  be  taken  of  Mirah's 
brother,  if  he  had  been  less  anxiously  preoccupied 
with  the  more  important  task  immediately  be- 
fore him,  which  he  desired  to  acquit  himself  of 
without  wounding  the  Cohens.  Mordecai,  by  a 
memorable  answer,  had  made  it  evident  that  he 
would  be  keenly  alive  to  any  inadvertence  in  re- 
lation to  their  feelings.  In  the  interval,  he  had 
been  meeting  Mordecai  at  the  Hand  and  Banner, 
but  now  after  due  reflection  he  wrote  to  him  say- 
ing that  he  had  particular  reasons  for  wishing  to 
see  him  in  his  own  home  the  next  evening,  and 
would  beg  to  sit  with  him  in  his  work-room  for  an 
hour,  if  the  Cohens  would  not  regard  it  as  an  in- 
trusion. He  would  call  with  the  understanding 
that  if  there  were  any  objection,  Mordecai  would 
accompany  him  elsewhere.  Deronda  hoped  in 
this  way  to  create  a  little  expectation  that  would 
have  a  preparatory  effect. 

He  was  received  with  the  usual  friendliness, 
some  additional  costume  in  the  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  in  all  the  elders  a  slight  air  of  wonder- 
ing which  even  in  Cohen  was  not  allowed  to  pass 
the  bounds  of  silence — the  guest's  transactions 
with  Mordecai  being  a  sort  of  mystery  which  he 
was  rather  proud  to  think  lay  outside  the  sphere 
of  light  which  inclosed  his  own  understanding. 
But  when  Deronda  said,  "  I  suppose  Mordecai  is 
at  home  and  expecting  me,"  Jacob,  who  had  prof- 
ited by  the  family  remarks,  went  up  to  his  knee 
and  said,  "  What  do  you  want  to  talk  to  Mordecai 
about  ?" 

"  Something  that  is  very  interesting  to  him," 
said  Deronda,  pinching  the  lad's  ear,  "  but  that 
you  can't  understand." 

"Can  you  say  this?"  said  Jacob,  immediate- 
ly giving  forth  a  string  of  his  rote-learned  He- 
brew verses  with  a  wonderful  mixture  of  the 
throaty  and  the  nasal,  and  nodding  his  small 
head  at  his  hearer,  with  a  sense  of  giving  formi- 
dable evidence  which  might  rather  alter  their 
mutual  position. 

N 


"  No,  really,"  said  Deronda,  keeping  grave ;  "  I 
can't  say  any  thing  like  it" 

"  I  thought  not,"  said  Jacob,  performing  a  dance 
of  triumph  with  his  small  scarlet  legs,  while  he 
took  various  objects  out  of  the  deep  pockets  of 
his  knickerbockers  and  returned  them  thither,  as 
a  slight  hint  of  his  resources ;  after  which,  run- 
ning to  the  door  of  the  work-room,  he  opened  it 
wide,  set  his  back  against  it,  and  said,  "  Mordecai, 
here's  the  young  swell" — a  copying  of  his  father's 
phrase  which  seemed  to  him  well  fitted  to  cap 
the  recitation  of  Hebrew. 

He  was  called  back  with  hushes  by  mother  and 
grandmother,  and  Deronda,  entering  and  closing 
the  door  behind  him,  saw  that  a  bit  of  carpet  had 
been  laid  down,  a  chair  placed,  and  the  fire  and 
lights  attended  to,  in  sign  of  the  Cohens'  respect. 
As  Mordecai  rose  to  greet  him,  Deronda  was 
struck  with  the  air  of  solemn  expectation  in  his 
face,  such  as  would  have  seemed  perfectly  natural 
if  his  letter  had  declared  that  some  revelation  was 
to  be  made  about  the  lost  sister.  Neither  of  them 
spoke  till  Deronda,  with  his  usual  tenderness  of 
manner,  had  drawn  the  vacant  chair  from  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  hearth  and  had  seated  himself 
near  to  Mordecai,  who  then  said,  in  a  tone  of  fer- 
vid certainty, 

"  You  are  come  to  tell  me  something  that  my 
soul  longs  for." 

"  It  is  true  that  I  have  something  very  weighty 
to  tell  you — something,  I  trust,  that  you  will  re- 
joice in,"  said  Deronda,  on  his  guard  against  the 
probability  that  Mordecai  had  been  preparing 
himself  for  something  quite  different  from  the 
fact. 

"  It  is  all  revealed — it  is  made  clear  to  you," 
said  Mordecai,  more  eagerly,  leaning  forward"  with 
clasped  hands.  "  You  are  even  as  my  brother 
that  sucked  the  breasts  of  my  mother — the  her- 
itage is  yours — there  is  no  doubt  to  divide  us." 

"  I  have  learned  nothing  new  about  myself," 
said  Deronda.  The  disappointment  was  inevita- 
ble :  it  was  better  not  to  let  the  feeling  be  strained 
longer  in  a  mistaken  hope. 

Mordecai  sank  back  in  his  chair,  unable  for  the 
moment  to  care  what  was  really  coming.  The 
whole  day  his  mind  had  been  in  a  state  of  tension 
toward  one  fulfillment.  The  reaction  was  sicken- 
ing, and  he  closed  his  eyes. 

"Except,"  Deronda  went  on,  gently,  after  a 
pause — "  except  that  I  had  really  some  time  ago 
come  into  another  sort  of  hidden  connection  with 
you,  besides  what  you  have  spoken  of  as  existing 
in  your  own  feeling." 

The  eyes  were  not  opened,  but  there  was  a 
fluttering  in  the  lids. 

1 1  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  one  in  whom 
you  are  interested." 

Mordecai  opened  his  eyes  and  fixed  them  in  a 
quiet  gaze  on  Deronda :  the  former  painful  check 
repressed  all  activity  of  conjecture. 

"  One  who  is  closely  related  to  your  departed 
mother,"  Deronda  went  on,  wishing  to  make  the 
disclosure  gradual ;  but  noticing  a  shrinking 
movement  in  Mordecai,  he  added — "  whom  she 
and  you  held  dear  above  all  others." 

Mordecai,  with  a  sudden  start,  laid  a  spasmodic 
grasp  on  Deronda's  wrist :  there  was  a  great  ter- 
ror in  him.  And  Deronda  divined  it.  A  tremor 
was  perceptible  in  his  clear  tones  as  he  said, 

"What  was  prayed  for  has  come  to  pass; 
Miruh  has  been  delivered  from  evil." 


194 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Mordecai's  grasp  relaxed  a  little,  but  he  was 
panting  with  a  sort  of  tearless  sob. 

Deronda  went  on :  "  Your  sister  is  worthy  of 
the  mother  you  honored." 

He  waited  there,  and  Mordecai,  throwing  him- 
self backward  in  his  chair,  again  closed  his  eyes, 
uttering  himself  almost  inaudibly  for  some  min- 
ntes  in  Hebrew,  and  then  subsiding  into  a  happy- 
looking  silence.  Deronda,  watching  the  expres- 
sion in  his  uplifted  face,  could  have  imagined 
that  he  was  speaking  with  some  beloved  object : 
there  was  a  new  suffused  sweetness,  something 
like  that  on  the  faces  of  the  beautiful  dead.  For 
the  first  time  Deronda  thought  he  discerned  a 
family  resemblance  to  Mirah. 

Presently,  when  Mordecai  was  ready  to  listen, 
the  rest  was  told.  But  in  accounting  for  Mirah's 
flight  he  made  the  statements  about  the  father's 
conduct  as  vague  as  he  could,  and  threw  the  em- 
phasis on  her  yearning  to  come  to  England  as 
the  place  where  she  might  find  her  mother.  Also 
he  kept  back  the  fact  of  Mirah's  intention  to 
drown  herself,  and  his  own  part  in  rescuing  her ; 
merely  describing  the  home  she  had  found  with 
friends  of  his,  whose  interest  in  her  and  efforts 
for  her  he  had  shared.  What  he  dwelt  on  finally 
was  Mirah's  feeling  about  her  mother  and  broth- 
er ;  and  in  relation  to  this  he  tried  to  give  every 
detail. 

"  It  was  in  search  of  them,"  said  Deronda,  smil- 
ing, "that  I  turned  into  this  house:  the  name 
Ezra  Cohen  was  just  then  the  most  interesting 
name  in  the  world  to  me.  I  confess  I  had  a  fear 
for  a  long  while.  Perhaps  you  will  forgive  me 
now  for  having  asked  you  that  question  about 
the  elder  Mrs.  Cohen's  daughter.  I  cared  very 
much  what  I  should  find  Mirah's  friends  to  be. 
But  I  had  found  a  brother  worthy  of  her  when  I 
knew  that  her  Ezra  was  disguised  under  the  name 
of  Mordecai." 

"  Mordecai  is  really  my  name — Ezra  Mordecai 
Cohen." 

"  Is  there  any  kinship  between  this  family  and 
yours  ?"  said  Deronda. 

"  Only  the  kinship  of  Israel.  My  soul  clings 
to  these  people,  who  have  sheltered  me  and  given 
me  succor  out  of  the  affection  that  abides  in 
Jewish  hearts,  as  a  sweet  odor  in  things  long 
crushed  and  hidden  from  the  outer  air.  It  is 
good  for  me  to  bear  with  their  ignorance  and  be 
bound  to  them  in  gratitude,  that  I  may  keep  in 
mind  the  spiritual  poverty  of  the  Jewish  million, 
and  not  put  impatient  knowledge  hi  the  stead  of 
loving  wisdom." 

"  But  you  don't  feel  bound  to  continue  with 
them  now  there  is  a  closer  tie  to  draw  you  ?" 
said  Deronda,  not  without  fear  that  he  might  find 
an  obstacle  to  overcome.  "  It  seems  to  me  right 
now — is  it  not  ? — that  you  should  live  with  your 
sister  ;  and  I  have  prepared  a  home  to  take  you 
to  in  the  neighborhood  of  her  friends,  that  she 
may  join  you  there.  Pray  grant  me  this  wish. 
It  will  enable  me  to  be  with  you  often  in  the  hours 
when  Mirah  is  obliged  to  leave  you.  That  is  my 
selfish  reason.  But  the  chief  reason  is,  that  Mi- 
rah will  desire  to  watch  over  you,  and  that  you 
ought  to  give  to  her  the  guardianship  of  a  broth- 
er's presence.  You  shall  have  books  about  you. 
I  shall  want  to  learn  of  you,  and  to  take  you  out 
to  see  the  river  and  trees.  And  you  will  have 
the  rest  and  comfort  that  you  will  be  more  and 
more  in  need  of — nay,  that  I  need  for  you.  This 


is  the  claim  I  make  on  you,  now  that  we  have 
found  each  other." 

Deronda,  grasping  his  own  coat  collar  rather 
nervously,  spoke  in  a  tone  of  earnest  affectionate 
pleading,  such  as  he  might  have  used  to  a  vener- 
ated elder  brother.  Mordecai's  eyes  were  fixed 
on  him  with  a  listening  contemplation,  and  he 
was  silent  for  a  little  while  after  Deronda  had 
ceased  to  speak.  Then  he  said,  with  an  almost 
reproachful  emphasis, 

"And  you  would  have  me  hold  it  doubtful 
whether  you  were  born  a  Jew !  Have  we  not 
from  the  first  touched  each  other  with  invisible 
fibres — have  we  not  quivered  together  like  the 
leaves  from  a  common  stem  with  stirrings  from 
a  common  root  ?  I  know  what  I  am  outwardly — 
I  am  one  among  the  crowd  of  poor — I  am  strick- 
en, I  am  dying.  But  our  souls  know  each  other. 
They  gazed  in  silence  as  those  who  have  long 
been  parted  and  meet  again,  but  when  they  found 
voice  they  were  assured,  and  all  their  speech  is 
understanding.  The  life  of  Israel  is  in  your 
veins." 

Deronda  sat  perfectly  still,  but  felt  his  face 
tingling.  It  was  impossible  either  to  deny  or  as- 
sent. He  waited,  hoping  that  Mordecai  would 
presently  give  him  a  more  direct  answer.  And 
after  a  pause  of  meditation  he  did  say,  firmly, 

"  What  you  wish  of  me  I  will  do.  And  our 
mother — may  the  blessing  of  the  Eternal  be  with 
her  iu  our  souls ! — would  have  wished  it  too.  I 
will  accept  what  your  loving-kindness  has  pre- 
pared, and  Mirah's  home  shall  be  mine."  He 
paused  a  moment,  and  then  added,  in  a  more  mel- 
ancholy tone,  "  But  I  shall  grieve  to  part  from 
these  parents  and  the  little  .ones.  You  must  tell 
them,  for  my  heart  would  fail  me." 

"  I  felt  that  you  would  want  me  to  tell  them. 
Shall  we  go  now  at  once  ?"  said  Deronda,  much 
relieved  by  this  unwavering  compliance. 

"  Yes ;  let  us  not  defer  it.  It  must  be  done," 
said  Mordecai,  rising  with  the  air  of  a  man  who 
has  to  perform  a  painful  duty.  Then  came,  as 
an  after-thought,  "  But  do  not  dwell  on  my  sister 
more  than  is  needful." 

When  they  entered  the  parlor  he  said  to  the 
alert  Jacob,  "  Ask  your  father  to  come,  and  tell 
Sarah  to  mind  the  shop.  My  friend  has  some- 
thing to  say,"  he  continued,  turning  to  the  elder 
Mrs.  Cohen.  It  seemed  part  of  Mordecai's  eccen- 
tricity that  he  should  call  this  gentleman  his 
friend,  and  the  two  women  tried  to  show  their 
better  manners  by  warm  politeness  in  begging 
Deronda  to  seat  himself  in  the  best  place. 

When  Cohen  entered,  with  a  pen  behind  his 
ear,  he  rubbed  his  hands  and  said,  with  loud  sat- 
isfaction, "  Well,  Sir !  I'm  glad  you're  doing  us 
the  honor  to  join  our  family  party  again.  We  are 
pretty  comfortable,  I  think." 

He  looked  round  with  shiny  gladness.  And 
when  all  were  seated  on  the  hearth  the  scene  was 
worth  peeping  in  upon :  on  one  side  Baby  under 
her  scarlet  quilt  in  the  corner  being  rocked  by 
the  young  mother,  and  Adelaide  Rebekah  seated 
on  the  grandmother's  knee ;  on  the  other,  Jacob 
between  his  father's  legs ;  while  the  two  marked- 
ly different  figures  of  Deronda  and  Mordecai  were 
in  the  middle — Mordecai  a  little  backward  in  the 
shade,  anxious  to  conceal  his  agitated  suscepti- 
bility to  what  was  going  on  around  him.  The 
chief  light  came  from  the  fire,  which  brought  out 
the  rich  color  on  a  depth  of  shadow,  and  seemed 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


196 


to  turn  into  speech  the  dark  gems  of  eyes  that 
looked  at  each  other  kindly. 

"  I  have  just  been  telling  Mordecai  of  an  event 
that  makes  a  great  change  in  his  life,"  Deronda 
began,  "  but  I  hope  you  will  agree  with  me  that 
it  is  a  joyful  one.  Since  he  thinks  of  you  as  his 
best  frieuds,  he  wishes  me  to  tell  you  for  him  at 
once." 

"  Relations  with  money,  Sir  ?"  burst  in  Cohen, 
feeling  a  power  of  divination  which  it  was  a  pity 
to  nullify  by  waiting  for  the  fact. 

"  Xo ;  not  exactly,"  said  Deronda,  smiling. 
"  But  a  very  precious  relation  wishes  to  be  re- 
united to  him — a  very  good  and  lovely  young 
sister,  who  will  care  for  his  comfort  in  every 
way." 

"Married,  Sir?" 

"  No,  not  married." 

"  But  with  a  maintenance  ?" 

"  With  talents  which  will  secure  her  a  main- 
tenance. A  home  is  already  provided  for  Mor- 
decai." 

There  was  silence  for  a  moment  or  two  before 
the  grandmother  said,  in  a  wailing  tone, 

"  Well,  well !  and  so  you're  going  away  from 
us,  Mordecai." 

•  "  And  where  there's  no  children  as  there  is 
here,"  said  the  mother,  catching  the  wail. 

"  No  Jacob,  and  no  Adelaide,  and  no  Eugenie !" 
wailed  the  grandmother  again. 

"  Ay,  ay,  Jacob's  learning  'ill  all  wear  out  of 
him.  He  must  go  to  school  It  '11  be  hard  times 
for  Jacob,"  said  Cohen,  in  a  tone  of  decision. 

In  the  wide-open  ears  of  Jacob  his  father's 
words  sounded  like  a  doom,  giving  an  awful  finish 
to  the  dirge-like  effect  of  the  whole  announcement. 
His  face  had  been  gathering  a  wondering  incredu- 
lous sorrow  at  the  notion  of  Mordecai's  going  away : 
he  was  unable  to  imagine  the  change  as  any  thing 
lasting ;  but  at  the  mention  of  "  hard  times  for 
Jacob"  there  was  no  further  suspense  of  feeling, 
and  he  broke  forth  in  loud  lamentation.  Ade- 
laide Rebekah  always  cried  when  her  brother  cried, 
and  now  began  to  howl  with  astonishing  sudden- 
ness, whereupon  baby,  awaking,  contributed  angry 
screams,  and  required  to  be  taken  out  of  the  cra- 
dle. A  great  deal  of  hushing  was  necessary,  and 
Mordecai,  feeling  the  cries  pierce  him,  put  out  his 
arms  to  Jacob,  who  in  the  midst  of  his  tears  and 
sobs  was  turning  his  head  right  and  left  for  gen- 
eral observation.  His  father,  who  had  been  say- 
ing, "  Never  mind,  old  man ;  you  shall  go  to  the 
riders,"  now  released  him,  and  he  went  to  Morde- 
cai, who  clasped  him  and  laid  his  cheek  on  the 
little  black  head  without  speaking.  But  Cohen, 
sensible  that  the  master  of  the  family  must  make 
some  apology  for  all  this  weakness,  and  that  the 
occasion  called  for  a  speech,  addressed  Deronda 
with  some  elevation  of  pitch,  squaring  his  elbows 
and  resting  a  hand  on  each  knee : 

"It's  not  as  we're  the  people  to  grudge  any 
body's  good  luck,  Sir,  or  the  portion  of  their  cup 
being  made  fuller,  as  I  may  say.  I'm  not  an 
envious  man,  and  if  any  body  offered  to  set  up 
Mordecai  in  a  shop  of  my  sort  two  doors  lower 
down,  /  shouldn't  make  wry  faces  about  it.  I'm 
not  one  of  them  that  had  need  have  a  poor  opin- 
ion of  themselves,  and  be  frightened  at  any  body 
else  getting  a  chance.  If  I'm  offal,  let  a  wise 
man  come  and  tell  me,  for  I've  never  heard  it 
yet.  And  in  point  of  business,  I'm  not  a  class 
of  goods  to  be  in  danger.  If  uny  body  takes  to 


rolling  me,  I  can  pack  myself  up  like  a  caterpil- 
lar, and  find  my  feet  when  I'm  let  alone.  And 
though,  as  I  may  say,  you're  taking  some  of  our 
good  works  from  us,  which  is  a  property  bearing 
interest,  I'm  not  saying  but  we  can  afford  that, 
though  my  mother  and  my  wife  had  the  good- 
will to  wish  and  do  for  Mordecai  to  the  last ;  and 
a  Jew  must  not  be  like  a  servant  who  works  for 
reward — though  I  see  nothing  against  a  reward 
if  I  can  get  it.  And  as  to  the  extra  outlay  in 
schooling,  I'm  neither  poor  nor  greedy — I  wouldn't 
hang  myself  for  sixpence,  nor  half  a  crown  nei- 
ther. But  the  truth  of  it  is,  the  women  and  chil- 
dren are  fond  of  Mordecai.  You  may  partly  see 
how  it  is,  Sir,  by  your  own  sense.  A  man  is 
bound  to  thank  God,  as  we  do  every  Sabbath, 
that  he  was  not  made  a  woman ;  but  a  woman 
has  to  thank  God  that  He  has  made  her  accord- 
ing to  His  will.  And  we  all  know  what  He  has 
made  her — a  child-bearing,  tender-hearted  thing 
is  the  woman  of  our  people.  Her  children  are 
mostly  stout,  as  I  think  you'll  say  Addy's  are, 
and  she's  not  mushy,  but  her  heart  is  tender. 
So  you  must  excuse  present  company,  Sir,  for  not 
being  glad  all  at  once.  And  as  to  this  young 
lady — for  by  what  you  say  '  young  lady'  is  the 
proper  term" — Cohen  here  threw  some  addition- 
al emphasis  into  his  look  and  tone — "we  shall 
all  be  glad  for  Mordecai's  sake  by-and-by,  when 
we  cast  up  our  accounts  and  see  where  we  are." 

Before  Deronda  could  summon  any  answer  to 
this  oddly  mixed  speech,  Mordecai  exclaimed : 

"  Friends,  friends  !  For  food  and  raiment  and 
shelter,  I  would  not  have  sought  better  than  you 
have  given  me.  You  have  sweetened  the  morsel 
with  love ;  and  what  I  thought  of  as  a  joy  that 
would  be  left  to  me  even  in  the  last  months  of 
my  waning  strength  was  to  go  on  teaching  the 
lad.  But  now  I  am  as  one  who  had  clad  himself 
beforehand  in  his  shroud,  and  used  himself  to 
making  the  grave  his  bed,  and  the  divine  com- 
mand came,  '  Arise,  and  go  forth ;  the  night  is 
not  yet  come.'  For  no  light  matter  would  I  have 
turned  away  from  your  kindness  to  take  anoth- 
er's. But  it  has  been  taught  us,  as  you  know, 
that  the  reward  of  one  ditty  is  the  power  to  fulfill 
another — so  said  Ben  Azai.  You  have  made 
your  duty  to  one  of  the  poor  among  your  breth- 
ren a  joy  to  you  and  me ;  and  your  reward  shall 
be  that  you  will  not  rest  without  the  joy  of  like 
deeds  in  the  time  to  come.  And  may  not  Jacob 
come  and  visit  me  ?" 

Mordecai  had  turned  with  this  question  to  De- 
ronda, who  said, 

"  Surely  that  can*  be  managed.  It  is  no  further 
than  Brompton." 

Jacob,  who  had  been  gradually  calmed  by  the 
need  to  hear  what  was  going  forward,  began  now 
to  see  some  daylight  on  the  future,  the  word 
"  visit"  having  the  lively  charm  of  cakes  and 
general  relaxation  at  his  grandfather's,  the  deal- 
er in  knives.  He  danced  away  from  Mordecai, 
and  took  up  a  station  of  survey  in  the  middle  of 
the  hearth,  with  his  hands  in  his  knickerbockers. 

"  Well,"  said  the  grandmother,  with  a  sigh  of 
resignation,  "  I  hope  there'll  be  nothing  in  the 
way  of  your  getting  kosher  meat,  Mordecai.  For 
you'll  have  to  trust  to  those  you  live  with." 

"  That's  all  right,  that's  all  right,  you  may  be 
sure,  mother,"  said  Cdhen,  as  if  anxious  to  cut  off 
inquiry  on  matters  in  which  he  was  uncertain  of 
the  guest's  position.  "  So,  Sir,"  he  added,  turn- 


196 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


ing  with  a  look  of  amused  enlightenment  to  De- 
ronda,  "it  was  better  than  learning  you  had  to 
talk  to  Mordecai  about!  I  wondered  to  myself 
at  the  time.  I  thought  somehow  there  was  a 
something." 

"  Mordecai  will  perhaps  explain  to  you  how  it 
was  that  I  was  seeking  him,"  said  Deronda,  feel- 
ing that  he  had  better  go,  and  rising  as  he  spoke. 

It  waa  agreed  that  he  should  come  again  and 
the  final  move  be  made  on  the  next  day  but  one ; 
but  when  he  was  going,  Mordecai  begged  to  walk 
with  him  to  the  end  of  the  street,  and  wrapped 
himself  in  coat  and  comforter.  It  was  a  March 
evening,  and  Deronda  did  not  mean  to  let  him  go 
far,  but  he  understood  the  wish  to  be  outside  the 
house  with  him  in  communicative  silence,  after 
the  exciting  speech  that  had  been  filling  the  last 
hour.  No  word  was  spoken  until  Deronda  had 
proposed  parting,  when  he  said, 

"  Mirah  would  wish  to  thank  the  Cohens  for 
their  goodness.  You  would  wish  her  to  do  so — 
to  come  and  see  them,  would  you  not  ?" 

Mordecai  did  not  answer  immediately,  but  at 
length  said, 

"  I  can  not  tell.  I  fear  not.  There  is  a  family 
sorrow,  and  the  sight  of  my  sister  might  be  to 
them  as  the  fresh  bleeding  of  wounds.  There  is 
a  daughter  and  sister  who  will  never  be  restored 
as  Mirah  is.  But  who  knows  the  pathways  ?  We 
are  all  of  us  denying  or  fulfilling  prayers — and 
men  in  their  careless  deeds  walk  amidst  invisible 
outstretched  arms  and  pleadings  made  in  vain. 
In  my  ears  I  have  the  prayers  of  generations  past 
and  to  come.  My  life  is  as  nothing  to  me  but  the 
beginning  of  fulfillment.  And  yet  I  am  only  an- 
other prayer — which  you  will  fulfill." 

Deronda  pressed  his  hand,  and  they  parted. 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 

"  And  you  must  love  him  ere  to  you 
He  will  seein  worthy  of  your  love." 

— WOKDB  WOBTII. 

ONE  might  be  tempted  to  envy  Deronda  pro- 
viding new  clothes  for  Mordecai,  and  pleasing 
himself  as  if  he  were  sketching  a  picture  in  im- 
agining the  effect  of  the  fine  gray  flannel  shirts 
and  a  dressing-gown  very  much  like  a  Francis- 
can's brown  frock,  with  Mordecai's  head  and 
neck  above  them.  Half  his  pleasure  was  the 
sense  of  seeing  Mirah's  brother  through  her  eyes, 
and  securing  her  fervid  joy  from  any  perturbing 
impression.  And  yet,  after  he  had  made  all 
things  ready,  he  was  visited  with  a  doubt  wheth- 
er he  were  not  mistaking  her,  and  putting  the 
lower  effect  for  the  higher :  was  she  not  just  as 
capable  as  he  himself  had  been  of  feeling  the 
impressive  distinction  in  her  brother  all  the  more 
for  that  aspect  of  poverty  which  was  among  the 
memorials  of  his  past?  But  there  were  the 
Meyricks  to  be  propitiated  toward  this  too  Juda- 
ic brother  ;  and  Deronda  detected  himself  piqued 
into  getting  out  of  sight  every  thing  that  might 
feed  the  ready  repugnance  in  minds  unblessed 
with  that  "  precious  seeing,"  that  bathing  of  all 
objects  in  a  solemnity  as  of  sunset  glow,  which 
is  begotten  of  a  loving  reverential  emotion. 

And  his  inclination  would  have  been  the  more 
confirmed  if  he  had  heard  the  dialogue  round 
Mrs.  Meyrick's  fire  late  in  the  evening,  after  Mi- 
rah  had  gone  to  her  room.  Hans,  settled  now  in 


his  Chelsea  rooms,  had  staid  late,  and  Mrs.  Mey- 
rick,  poking  the  fire  into  a  blaze,  said, 

"  Now,  Kate,  put  out  your  caudle,  and  all  come 
round  the  fire  cozily.  Hans  dear,  do  leave  off 
laughing  at  those  poems  for  the  ninety -ninth 
time,  and  come  too.  I  have  something  wonder- 
ful to  tell  you." 

"  As  if  I  didn't  know  that,  ma.  I  have  seen  it 
in  the  corner  of  your  eye  ever  so  long,  and  in 
your  pretenses  of  errands,"  said  Kate,  while  the 
girls  came  to  put  their  feet  on  the  fender,  and 
Hans,  pushing  his  chair  near  them,  sat  astride  it, 
resting  his  fists  and  chin  on  the  back. 

"  Well,  then,  if  you  are  so  wise,  perhaps  you 
know  that  Mirah's  brother  is  found !"  said  Mrs. 
Meyrick,  in  her  clearest  accents. 

"  Oh,  confound  it !"  said  Hans,  hi  the  same  mo- 
ment. 

"  Hans,  that  is  wicked,"  said  Mab.  "  Suppose 
we  had  lost  you  ?" 

"lean  not  help  being  rather  sorry,"  said  Kate. 
"And  her  mother? — where  is  she?" 

"  Her  mother  is  dead." 

"  I  hope  the  brother  is  not  a  bad  man,"  said 
Amy. 

"  Nor  a  fellow  all  smiles  and  jewelry — a  Crys- 
tal Palace  Assyrian  with  a  hat  on,"  said  Hans,  in 
the  worst  humor. 

"  Were  there  ever  such  unfeeling  children  ?" 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  a  little  strengthened  by  the 
need  for  opposition.  "  You  don't  think  the  least 
bit  of  Mirah's  joy  in  the  matter." 

"  You  know,  ma,  Mirah  hardly  remembers  her 
brother,"  said  Kate. 

"People  who  are  lost  for  twelve  years  should 
never  come  back  again,"  said  Hans."  "  They  are 
always  in  the  way." 

"  Hans !"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  reproachfully.  "  If 
you  had  lost  me  for  twenty  years,  I  should  have 
thought— '' 

"I  said  twelve  years,"  Hans  broke  in.  "Any 
where  about  twelve  years  is  the  time  at  which 
lost  relations  should  keep  out  of  the  way." 

"  Well,  but  it's  nice  finding  people — there  is 
something  to  tell,"  said  Mab,  clasping  her  knees. 
"  Did  Prince  Camaralzaman  find  him  ?" 

Then  Mrs.  Meyrick,  in  her  neat  narrative  way, 
told  all  she  knew  without  interruption.  "Mr. 
Deronda  has  the  highest  admiration  for  him," 
she  ended — "  seems  quite  to  look  up  to  him. 
And  he  says  Mirah  is  just  the  sister  to  under- 
stand this  brother." 

"Deronda  is  getting  perfectly  preposterous 
about  those  Jews,"  said  Hans,  with  disgust,  rising 
and  setting  his  chair  away  with  a  bang.  "  He 
wants  to  do  every  thing  he  can  to  encourage  Mi- 
rah in  her  prejudices." 

"  Oh,  for  shame,  Hans  ! — to  speak  in  that  way 
of  Mr.  Deronda,"  said  Mab.  And  Mrs.  Meyru-k's 
face  showed  something  like  an  under-current  of 
expression,  not  allowed  to  get  to  the  surface. 

"  And  now  we  shall  never  be  all  together," 
Hans  went  on,  walking  about  with  his  hands 
thrust  into  the  pockets  of  Ins  brown  velveteen 
coat, "  but  we  must  have  this  prophet  Elijah  to 
tea  with  us,  and  Mirah  will  think  of  nothing  but 
sitting  on  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem.  She  will  bo 
spoiled  as  an  artist — mind  that — she  will  get  as 
narrow  as  a  nun.  Every  thing  will  be  spoiled 
— our  home  and  every  thing.  I  shall  take  to 
drinking." 

"  Oli,  really,  Hans,"  said  Kate,  impatiently,  "I 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


197 


do  think  men  are  the  most  contemptible  ani- 
mals in  all  creation.  Every  one  of  them  must 
have  every  thing  to  his  mind,  else  he  is  unbear- 
able." 

"Oh,  oh,  oh,  it's  very  dreadful!"  cried  Mab. 
"  I  feel  as  if  ancient  Nineveh  were  come  again." 

"  I  should  like  to  know  what  is  the  good  of 
having  gone  to  the  university  and  knowing  every 
thing,  if  you  are  so  childish,  Hans,"  said  Amy. 
"  You  ought  to  put  up  with  a  man  that  Provi- 
dence sends  you  to  be  kind  to.  We  shall  have  to 
put  up  with  him." 

"  I  hope  you  will  all  of  you  like  the  new  Lam- 
entations of  Jeremiah — '  to  be  continued  in  our 
next' — that's  all,"  said  Hans,  seizing  his  wide- 
awake. "  It's  no  use  being  one  thing  more  than 
another  if  one  has  to  endure  the  company  of 
those  men  with  a  fixed  idea — staring  blankly  at 
you,  and  requiring  all  your  remarks  to  be  small 
foot-notes  to  their  text.  If  you're  to  be  under  a 
petrifying  well,  you'd  better  be  an  old  boot.  I 
don't  feel  myself  an  old  boot."  Then  abruptly, 
"  Good-night,  little  mother,"  bending  to  kiss  her 
brow  in  a  hasty,  desperate  manner,  and  conde- 
scendingly, on  his  way  to  the  door, "  Good-night, 
girls." 

"  Suppose  Mirah  knew  how  you  are  behaving," 
said  Kate.  But  her  answer  was  a  slam  of  the 
door.  "  I  should  like  to  see  Mirah  when  Mr.  De- 
ronda  tA\a  her,"  she  went  on,  to  her  mother.  "I 
know  she  will  look  so  beautiful." 

But  Deronda  on  second  thoughts  had  written  a 
letter,  which  Mrs.  Meyrick  received  the  next  morn- 
ing, begging  her  to  make  the  revelation  instead  of 
waiting  for  him,  not  giving  the  real  reason — that 
he  shrank  from  going  again  through  a  narrative 
in  which  he  seemed  to  be  making  himself  im- 
portant, and  giving  himself  a  character  of  gener- 
al beneficence — but  saying  that  he  wished  to  re- 
main with  Mordecai  while  Mrs.  Meyrick  would 
bring  Mirah  on  what  was  to  be  understood  as  a 
visit,  so  that  there  might  be  a  little  interval  be- 
fore that  change  of  abode  which  he  expected  that 
Mirah  herself  would  propose. 

Deronda  secretly  felt  some  wondering  anxiety 
how  far  Mordecai,  after  years  of  solitary  preoccu- 
pation with  ideas  likely  to  have  become  the  more 
exclusive  from  continual  diminution  of  bodily 
strength,  would  allow  himself  to  feel  a  tender  in- 
terest in  his  sister  over  and  above  the  rendering 
of  pious  duties.  His  feeling  for  the  Cohens,  and 
especially  for  little  Jacob,  showed  a  persistent  ac- 
tivity of  affection ;  but  those  objects  had  entered 
into  his  daily  life  for  years ;  and  Deronda  felt  it 
noticeable  that  Mordecai  asked  no  new  questions 
about  Mirah,  maintaining,  indeed,  an  unusual  si- 
lence on  all  subjects,  and  appearing  simply  to 
submit  to  the  changes  that  were  coming  over  his 
personal  life.  He  donned  his  new  clothes  obedi- 
ently, but  said  afterward  to  Deronda,  with  a  faint 
smile,  "  I  must  keep  my  old  garments  by  me  for 
a  remembrance."  And  when  they  were  seated 
awaiting  Mirah,  he  uttered  no  word,  keeping  his 
eyelids  closed,  but  yet  showing  restless  feeling  in 
his  face  and  hands.  In  fact,  Mordecai  was  un- 
dergoing that  peculiar  nervous  perturbation  only 
known  to  those  whose  minds,  long  and  habitually 
moving  with  strong  impetus  in  one  current,  are 
suddenly  compelled  into  a  new  or  re-opened  chan- 
nel. Susceptible  people  whose  strength  has  been 
long  absorbed  by  a  dominant  bias  dread  an  inter- 
view that  imperiously  revives  the  past,  as  they 


would  dread  a  threatening  illness.  Joy  may  be 
there,  but  joy,  too,  is  terrible. 

Deronda  felt  the  infection  of  excitement,  and 
when  he  heard  the  ring  at  the  door,  he  went  out, 
not  knowing  exactly  why,  that  he  might  see  and 
greet  Mirah  beforehand.  He  was  startled  to  find 
that  she  had  on  the  hat  and  cloak  in  which  he  had 
first  seen  her — the  memorable  cloak  that  had  once 
been  wetted  for  a  winding-sheet.  She  had  come 
down  stairs  equipped  in  this  way,  and  when  Mrs. 
Meyrick  said,  in  a  tone  of  question,  "  You  like  to 
go  in  that  dress,  dear  ?"  she  answered,  "  My  broth- 
er is  poor,  and  I  want  to  look  as  much  like  him 
as  I  can,  else  he  may  feel  distant  from  me" — 
imagining  that  she  should  meet  him  in  the  work- 
man's dress.  Deronda  could  not  make  any  re- 
mark, but  felt  secretly  rather  ashamed  of  his  own 
fastidious  arrangements.  They  shook  hands  si- 
lently, for  Mirah  looked  pale  and  awed. 

When  Deronda  opened  the  door  for  her,  Mor- 
decai had  risen,  and  had  his  eyes  turned  toward 
it  with  an  eager  gaze.  Mirah  took  only  two  or 
three  steps,  and  then  stood  still.  They  looked 
at  each  other^  motionless.  It  was  less  their  own 
presence  that  they  felt  than  another's ;  they  were 
meeting  first  in  memories,  compared  with  which 
touch  was  no  union.  Mirah  was  the  first  to  break 
the  silence,  standing  where  she  was. 

"  Ezra,"  she  said,  in  exactly  the  same  tone  as 
when  she  was  telling  of  her  mother's  call  to 
him. 

Mordecai  with  a  sudden  movement  advanced 
and  laid  his  hands  on  her  shoulders.  He  was 
the  head  taller,  and  looked  down  at  her  tenderly 
while  he  said,  "That  was  our  mother's  .voice. 
You  remember  her  calling  me  ?" 

"  Yes,  and  how  you  answered  her — '  Mother !' 
— and  I  knew  you  loved  her."  Mirah  threw  her 
arms  round  her  brother's  neck,  clasped  her  little 
hands  behind  it,  and  drew  down  his  face,  kiss- 
ing it  with  child-like  lavishness.  Her  hat  fell 
backward  on  the  ground  and  disclosed  all  her 
curls. 

"Ah,  the  dear  head,  the  dear  head !"  said  Mor- 
decai, in  a  low  loving  tone,  laying  his  thin  hand 
gently  on  the  curls. 

"You  are  very  ill,  Ezra,"  said  Mirah,  sadly, 
looking  at  him  with  more  observation. 

"  Yes,  dear  child,  I  shall  not  be  long  with  you 
in  the  body,"  was  the  quiet  answer. 

"  Oh,  I  will  love  you  and  we  will  talk  to  each, 
other,"  said  Mirah,  with  a  sweet  outpouring  of 
her  words,  as  spontaneous  as  bird-notes.  "I 
will  tell  you  every  thing,  and  you  will  teach  me 
— you  will  teach  me  to  be  a  good  Jewess — what 
she  would  have  liked  me  to  be.  I  shall  always 
be  with  you  when  I  am  not  working.  For  I  work 
now.  I  shall  get  money  to  keep  us.  Oh,  I  have 
had  such  good  friends  !" 

Mirah  until  now  had  quite  forgotten  that  any 
one  was  by,  but  here  she  turned  with  the  pretti- 
est attitude,  keeping  one  hand  on  her  brother's 
arm  while  she  looked  at  Mrs.  Meyrick  and  De- 
ronda. The  little  mother's  happy  emotion  in 
witnessing  this  meeting  of  brother  and  sister  had 
already  won  her  to  Mordecai,  who  eeemed  to  her 
really  to  have  more  dignity  and  refinement  than 
she  had  felt  obliged  to  believe  in  from  Deronda's 
account 

"  See  this  dear  lady !"  said  Mirah.  "  I  was  a 
stranger,  a  poor  wanderer,  and  she  believed  in  me, 
and  has  treated  me  as  a  daughter.  Please  give 


198 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


my  brother  your  hand,"  she  added,  beseechingly, 
taking  Mrs.  Meyrick's  hand  and  putting  it  in 
Mordecai's,  then  pressing  them  both  with  her 
own  and  lifting  them  to  her  lips. 

"The  Eternal  Goodness  has  been  with  you," 
said  Mordecai.  "  You  have  helped  to  fulfill  our 
mother's  prayer." 

"  I  think  we  will  go  now,  shall  we  ?— and  re- 
turn later,"  said  Deronda,  laying  a  gentle  pressure 
on  Mrs.  Meyrick's  arm,  and  she  immediately  com- 
plied. He  was  afraid  of  any  reference  to  the 
facts  about  himself  which  he  had  kept  back 
from  Mordecai,  and  he  felt  no  uneasiness  now  in 
the  thought  of  the  brother  and  sister  being  alone 
together. 


CHAPTER  XL VIII. 

Tie  a  hard  and  ill-paid  task  to  order  all  things  be- 
forehand by  the  rule  of  our  own  security,  as  is  well 
hinted  by  Macchiavelli  concerning  Caesar  Borgia,  who, 
eaith  he,  had  thought  of  all  that  might  occur  on  his 
father's  death,  and  had  provided  against  every  evil 
chance  save  only  one :  it  had  never  come  into  his  mind 
that  when  hia  father  died,  bos  own  death  would  quickly 
follow. 

GRANDCOURT'S  importance  as  a  subject  of  this 
realm  was  of  the  grandly  passive  kind  which  con- 
sists in  the  inheritance  of  land.  Political  and 
social  movements  touched  him  only  through  the 
wire  of  his  rental,  and  his  most  careful  biographer 
need  not  have  read  up  on  Schleswig-Holstein,  the 
policy  of  Bismarck,  trade-unions,  household  suf- 
frage, or  even  the  last  commercial  panic.  He 
glanced  over  the  best  newspaper  columns  on  these 
topics,  and  his  .views  on  them  can  hardly  be  said 
to  have  wanted  breadth,  since  he  embraced  all 
Germans,  all  commercial  men,  and  all  voters  lia- 
ble to  use  the  wrong  kind  of  soap,  under  the  gen- 
eral epithet  of  "brutes ;"  but  he  took  no  action 
on  these  much-agitated  questions  beyond  looking 
from  under  his  eyelids  at  any  man  who  mention- 
ed them,  and  retaining  a  silence  which  served  to 
shake  the  opinions  of  timid  thinkers. 

But  Grandcourt  within  his  own  sphere  of  in- 
terest showed  some  of  the  qualities  which  have 
entered  into  triumphal  diplomacy  of  the  widest 
continental  sort 

No  movement  of  Gwendolen  in  relation  to  De- 
ronda escaped  him.  He  would  have  denied  that 
he  was  jealous,  because  jealousy  would  have  im- 
plied some  doubt  of  his  own  power  to  hinder  what 
he  had  determined  against.  That  his  wife  should 
have  more  inclination  to  another  man's  society 
than  to  his  own  would  not  pain  him:  what  he 
required  was  that  she  should  be  as  fully  aware  as 
she  would  have  been  of  a  locked  hand-cuff,  that 
her  inclination  was  helpless  to  decide  any  thing 
in  contradiction  with  his  resolve.  However  much 
of  vacillating  whim  there  might  have  been  in  his 
entrance  on  matrimony,  there  was  no  vacillating 
in  his  interpretation  of  the  bond.  He  had  not 
repented  of  his  marriage ;  it  had  really  brought 
more  of  aim  into  his  life,  new  objects  to  exert  his 
will  upon ;  and  he  had  not  repented  of  his  choice. 
His  taste  was  fastidious,  and  Gwendolen  satisfied 
it :  he  would  not  have  liked  a  wife  who  had  not 
received  some  elevation  of  rank  from  him ;  nor 
one  who  did  not  command  admiration  by  her  mien 
and  beauty ;  nor  one  whose  nails  were  not  of  the 
right  shape ;  nor  one  the  lobe  of  whose  ear  was 
at  all  too  large  and  red ;  nor  one  who,  even  if  her 
nails  and  ears  were  right,  was  at  the  same  time  a 


ninny,  unable  to  make  spirited  answers.  These 
requirements  may  not  seem  too  exacting  to  refined 
contemporaries  whose  own  ability  to  fall  in  love 
has  been  held  in  suspense  for  lack  of  indispensa- 
ble details ;  but  fewer  perhaps  may  follow  him  in 
his  contentment  that  his  wife  should  be  in  a  tem- 
per which  would  dispose  her  to  fly  out  if  she 
dared,  and  that  she  should  have  been  urged  into 
marrying  him  by  other  feelings  than  passionate 
attachment.  Still,  for  those  who  prefer  command 
to  love,  one  does  not  see  why  the  habit  of  mind 
should  change  precisely -at  the  point  of  matri- 
mony. 

Grandcourt  did  not  feel  that  he  had  chosen  the 
wrong  wife;  and  having  taken  on  himself  the 
part  of  husband,  he  was  not  going  in  any  way  to 
be  fooled,  or  allow  himself  to  be  seen  in  a  light 
that  could  be  regarded  as  pitiable.  This  was  his 
state  of  mind — not  jealousy ;  still,  his  behavior 
in  some  respects  was  as  like  jealousy  as  yellow  is 
to  yellow,  which  color  we  know  may  be  the  effect 
of  very  different  causes. 

He  had  come  up  to  town  earlier  than  usual 
because  he  wished  to  be  on  the  spot  for  legal 
consultation  as  to  the  arrangements  of  his  will, 
the  transference  of  mortgages,  and  that  transac- 
tion with  his  uncle  about  the  succession  to  Dip- 
low,  which  the  bait  of  ready  money,  adroitly 
dangled  without  importunity,  had  finally  won  him 
to  agree  upon.  But  another  acceptable  accom- 
paniment of  his  being  in  town  was  the  presenta- 
tion of  himself  with  the  beautiful  bride  whom  he 
had  chosen  to  marry  in  spite  of  what  other  peo- 
ple might  have  expected  of  him.  It  is  true  that 
Grandcourt  went  about  with  the  sense  that  he  did 
not  care  a  languid  curse  for  any  one's  admira- 
tion ;  but  this  state  of  not  caring,  just  as  much 
as  desire,  required  its  related  object — namely,  a 
world  of  admiring  or  envying  spectators :  for  if 
you  are  fond  of  looking  stonily  at  smiKng  per- 
sons, the  persons  must  be  there  and  they  must 
smile — a  rudimentary  truth  which  is  surely  for- 
gotten by  those  who  complain  of  mankind  as 
generally  contemptible,  since  any  other  aspect  of 
the  race  must  disappoint  the  voracity  of  their  con- 
tempt. Grandcourt,  in  town  for  the  first  time 
with  his  wife,  had  his  non-caring  abstinence  from 
curses  enlarged  and  diversified  by  splendid  recep- 
tions, by  conspicuous  rides  and  drives,  by  pres- 
entations of  himself  with  her  on  all  distinguished 
occasions.  He  wished  her  to  be  sought  after; 
he  liked  that  "  fellows"  should  be  eager  to  talk 
with  her  and  escort  her  within  his  observation ; 
there  was  even  a  kind  of  lofty  coquetry  ou  her 
part  that  he  would  not  have  objected  to.  But 
what  he  did  not  like  were  her  ways  in  relation  to 
Deronda. 

After  the  musical  party  at  Lady  Mallinger's, 
when  Grandcourt  had  observed  the  dialogue  on 
the  settee  as  keenly  us  Hans  had  done,  it  was 
characteristic  of  him  that  he  named  Deronda  for 
invitation  along  with  the  Mallingers,  tenaciously 
avoiding  the  possible  suggestion  to  any  body  con- 
cerned that  Deronda's  presence  or  absence  could 
be  of  the  least  importance  to  him ;  and  he  made 
no  direct  observation  to  Gwendolen  on  her  be- 
havior that  evening,  lest  the  expression  of  his 
disgust  should  be  a  little  too  strong  to  satisfy  his 
own  pride.  But*  few  days  afterward  he  remark- 
ed, without  being  careful  of  the  Apropos, 

"Nothing  makes  a  woman  more  of  a  gawky 
than  looking  out  after  people  and  showing  tern- 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


199 


pers  in  public.  A  woman  ought  to  have  fine  man- 
ners. Else  it's  intolerable  to  appear  with  her." 

Gwendolen  made  the  expected  application,  and 
was  not  without  alarm  at  the  notion  of  being  a 
gawky.  For  she,  too,  with  her  melancholy  dis- 
taste for  things,  preferred  that  her  distaste  should 
include  admirers.  But  the  sense  of  overhanging 
rebuke  only  intensified  the  strain  of  expectation 
toward  any  meeting  with  Deronda.  The  novelty 
and  excitement  of  her  town  life  was  like  the  hur- 
ry and  constant  change  of  foreign  travel :  what- 
ever might  be  the  inward  despondency,  there  was 
a  programme  to  be  fulfilled,  not  without  gratifica- 
tion to  many-sided  self.  But,  as  always  happens 
with  a  deep  interest,  the  comparatively  rare  occa- 
sions on  which  she  could  exchange  any  words 
with  Deronda  had  a  diffusive  effect  in  her  con- 
sciousness, magnifying  their  communication  with 
each  other,  and  therefore  enlarging  the  place  she 
imagined  it  to  have  in  his  mind.  How  could 
Deronda  help  this  ?  He  certainly  did  not  avoid 
her ;  rather  he  wished  to  convince  her  by  every 
delicate  indirect  means  that  her  confidence  in 
him  had  not  been  indiscreet,  since  it  had  not  low- 
ered his  tespect.  Moreover,  he  liked  being  near 
her — how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  She  was  some- 
thing more  than  a  problem :  she  was  a  lovely 
woman,  for  the  turn  of  whose  mind  and  fate  he 
had  a  care  which,  however  futile  it  might  be,  kept 
soliciting  him  as  a  responsibility,  perhaps  all  the 
more  that,  when  he  dared  to  think  of  his  own 
future,  he  saw  it  lying  far  away  from  this  splen- 
did sad-hearted  creature,  who,  because  he  had 
once  been  impelled  to  arrest  her  attention  mo- 
mentarily, as  he  might  have  seized  her  arm  with 
warning  to  hinder  her  from  stepping  where  there 
was  danger,  had  turned  to  him  with  a  beseeching 
persistent  need. 

One  instance  in  which  Grandcourt  stimulated  a 
feeling  in  Gwendolen  that  he  would  have  liked 
to  suppress  without  seeming  to  care  about  it,  had 
relation  to  Mirah.  Gwendolen's  inclination  lin- 
gered over  the  project  of  the  singing  lessons  as 
a  sort  of  obedience  to  Deronda's  advice,  but  day 
followed  day  with  that  want  of  perceived  leisure 
which  belongs  to  lives  where  there  is  no  work  to 
mark  off  intervals ;  and  the  continual  liability  to 
Grandcourt's  presence  and  surveillance  seemed 
to  flatten  every  effort  to  the  level  of  the  boredom 
which  his  manner  expressed :  his  negative  mind 
was  as  diffusive  as  fog,  clinging  to  all  objects, 
and  spoiling  all  contact. 

But  one  morning  when  they  were  breakfasting, 
Gwendolen,  in  a  recurrent  fit  of  determination  to 
exercise  her  old  spirit,  said,  dallying  prettily  over 
her  prawns  without  eating  them, 

"  I  think  of  making  myself  accomplished  while 
we  are  in  town,  and  having  singing  lessons." 

"  Why  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  languidly. 

"  Why  ?"  echoed  Gwendolen,  playing  at  sauci- 
ness ;  "because  I  can't  eat  pdte  de  foie  yras  to 
make  me  sleepy,  and  I  can't  smoke,  and  I  can't 
go  to  the  club  to  make  me  like  to  come  away 
again — I  want  a  variety  of  ennui.  What  would 
be  the  most  convenient  time,  when  you  are  busy 
with  your  lawyers  and  people,  for  me  to  have 
lessons  from  that  little  Jewess,  whose  singing  is 
getting  all  the  rage  ?" 

"  Whenever  you  like,"  said  Grandcourt,  push- 
ing away  his  plate,  and  leaning  back  in  his  chair 
while  he  looked  at  her  with  his  most  lizard-like 
expression,  and  played  with  the  ears  of  the  tiny 


spaniel  on  his  lap  (Gwendolen  had  taken  a  dis- 
like to  fhe  dogs  because  they  fawned  on  him). 

Then  he  said,  languidly,  "I  don't  see  why  a 
lady  should  sing.  Amateurs  make  fools  of  them- 
selves. A  lady  can't  risk  herself  in  that  way  in 
company.  And  one  doesn't  want  to  hear  squall- 
ing in  private." 

"  I  like  frankness :  that  seems  to  me  a  hus- 
band's great  charm,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  her 
little  upward  movement  of  her  chin,  as  she  turned 
her  eyes  away  from  his,  and  lifting  a  prawn  be- 
fore her,  looked  at  the  boiled  ingenuousness  of 
its  eyes  as  preferable  to  the  lizard's.  "  But,"  she 
added,  having  devoured  her  mortification,  "I 
suppose  you  don't  object  to  Miss  Lapidoth's  sing- 
ing at  our  party  on  the  4th  ?  I  thought  of  en- 
gaging her.  Lady  Brackenshaw  had  her,  you 
know  ;  and  the  Raymonds,  who  are  very  particu- 
lar about  their  music.  And  Mr.  Deronda,  who  is 
a  musician  himself,  and  a  first-rate  judge,  says 
that  there  is  no  singing  in  such  good  taste  as  hers 
for  a  drawing-room.  I  think  his  opinion  is  an 
authority." 

She  meant  to  sling  a  small  stone  at  her  hus- 
band in  that  way. 

"It's  very  indecent  of  Deronda  to  go  about 
praising  that  girl,"  said  Grandcourt,  in  a  tone  of 
indifference. 

"  Indecent !"  exclaimed  Gwendolen,  reddening 
and  looking  at  him  again,  overcome  by  startled 
wonder,  and  unable  to  reflect  on  the  probable 
falsity  of  the  phrase,  "  to  go  about  praising." 

"  Yes ;  and  especially  when  she  is  patronized 
by  Lady  Mallinger.  He  ought  to  hold  his  tongue 
about  her.  Men  can  see  what  is  his  relation  to 
her." 

"Men  who  judge  of  others  by  themselves," 
said  Gwendolen,  turning  white  after  her  redness, 
and  immediately  smitten  with  a  dread  of  her  own 
words. 

"  Of  course.  And  a  woman  should  take  their 
judgment — else  she  is  likely  to  run  her  head  into 
the  wrong  place,"  said  Grandcourt,  conscious  of 
using  pincers  on 'that  white  creature.  "I  sup- 
pose you  take  Deronda  for  a  saint." 

"  Oh  dear  no !"  said  Gwendolen,  summoning  des- 
perately her  almost  miraculous  power  of  self-con- 
trol, and  speaking  in  a  high  hard  tone.  "  Only  a 
little  less  of  a  monster." 

She  rose,  pushed  her  chair  away  without  hurry, 
and  walked  out  of  the  room  with  something  like 
the  care  of  a  man  who  is  afraid  of  showing  that 
he  has  taken  more  wine  than  usual.  She  turned 
the  keys  inside  her  dressing-room  doors,  and  sat 
down,  for  some  tune  looking  as  pale  and  quiet  as 
when  she  was  leaving  the  breakfast-room.  Even 
in  the  moments  after  reading  the  poisonous  letter 
she  had  hardly  had  more  cruel  sensations  than 
now ;  for  emotion  was  at  the  acute  point  where 
it  is  not  distinguishable  from  sensation.  Deron- 
da unlike  what  she  had  believed  him  to  be  was 
an  image  which  affected  her  as  a  hideous  appari- 
tion would  have  done,  quite  apart  from  the  way 
in  which  it  was  produced.  It  had  taken  hold  of 
her  as  pain  before  she  could  consider  whether  it 
were  fiction  or  truth ;  and  further  to  hinder  her 
power  of  resistance  came  the  sudden  perception 
how  very  slight  were  the  grounds  of  her  faith  in 
Deronda — how  little  she  knew  of  his  life — how 
childish  she  had  been  in  her  confidence.  His  re- 
bukes and  his  severity  to  her  began  to  seem  odi- 
ous, along  with  all  the  poetry  and  lofty  doctrine 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


in  the  world,  whatever  it  might  be  ;  and  the  grave 
beauty  of  his  face  seemed  the  most  unpleasant 
mask  that  the  common  habits  of  men  could  put  on. 

All  this  went  on  in  her  with  the  rapidity  of  a 
sick  dream ;  and  her  start  into  resistance  was 
very  much  like  a  waking.  Suddenly  from  out 
the  gray  sombre  morning  there  came  a  stream  of 
sunshine,  wrapping  her  in  warmth  and  light  where 
she  sat  in  stony  stillness.  She  moved  gently  and 
looked  round  her — there  was  a  world  outside  this 
bad  dream,  and  the  dream  proved  nothing ;  she 
rose,  stretching  her  arms  upward  and  clasping 
her  hands  with  her  habitual  attitude  when  she 
was  seeking  relief  from  oppressive  feeling,  and 
walked  about  the  room  in  this  flood  of  sunbeams. 

*'  It  is  not  true !  What  does  it  matter  whether 
he  believes  it  or  not  ?"  This  was  what  she  re- 
peated to  herself — but  this  was  not  her  faith  come 
back  again ;  it  was  only  the  desperate  cry  of  faith, 
finding  suffocation  intolerable.  And  how  could 
she  go  on  through  the  day  in  this  state  ?  With 
one  of  her  impetuous  alternations,  her  imagination 
flew  to  wild  actions,  by  which  she  would  convince 
herself  of  what  she  wished :  she  would  go  to  Lady 
Hallinger  and  question  her  about  Mirah;  she 
would  write  to  Deronda  and  upbraid  him  with 
making  the  world  all  false  and  wicked  and  hope- 
less to  her — to  him  she  dared  pour  out  all  the 
bitter  indignation  of  her  heart.  No ;  she  would 
go  to  Mirah.  This  last  form  taken  by  her  need 
was  more  definitely  practicable,  and  quickly  be- 
came imperious.  No  matter  what  came  of  it."  She 
had  the  pretext  of  asking  Mirah  to  sing  at  her 
party  on  the  4th.  What  was  she  going  to  say 
besides  ?  How  satisfy  herself  ?  .She  did  not  fore- 
see— she  could  not  wait  to  foresee.  If  that  idea 
which  was  maddening  her  had  been  a  living  thing, 
she  would  have  wanted  to  throttle  it  without  wait- 
ing ,t»  foresee  what  would  come  of  the  act.  She 
rang  her  bell  and  asked  if  Mr.  Grandcourt  were 
gone  eut-  finding  that  he  was,  she  ordered  the 
carriage,  and  began  to  dress  for  the  drive ;  then 
she  went  down,  and  walked  about  the  large  draw- 
ing-room like  an  imprisoned  dumb  .creature,  not 
recognizing  herself  in  the  glass  panels,  not  noting 
any  object  around  her  in  the  painted  gilded  pris- 
on. Her  husband  would  probably  find  out  where 
she  had  been,  and  punish  her  in  some  way  or  oth- 
er— no  matter — she  could  neither  desire  nor  fear 
any  thing  just  now  but  the  assurance  that  she 
had  not  been  deluding  herself  in  her  trust. 

She  was  provided  with  Mirah's  address.  Soon 
she  was  on  the  way  with  all  the  fine  equipage 
necessary  to  carry  about  her  poor  uneasy  heart, 
depending  in  its  palpitations  .on  some  answer  or 
other  to  questioning  which  she  did  not  knew  how 
she  should  put.  She  was  as  heedless  of  what 
happened  before  she  found  that  Miss  Lapidoth 
was  at  home  as  one  is  of  .lobbies  and  passages  on 
the  way  to  a  court  of  justice — heedless  of  every 
thing  till  she  was  in  a  room  where  there  were 
folding-doors,  and  she  heard  Deronda's  voice  be- 
hind them.  Doubtless  the  identification  was  help- 
ed by  forecast,  but  she  was  as  certain  of  it  as  if  she 
had  seen  him.  She  was  frightened  at  her  own 
agitation,  and  began  to  unbutton  her  gloves  that 
she  might  button  them  again,  and  bite  her  lips 
over  the-pretended  difficulty,  while  the  door  open- 
ed, and  Mirah  presented  herself  with  perfect  quie- 
tude and  a  sweet  smile  of  recognition.  There  was 
relief  in  the  sight  of  her  face,  and  Gwendolen  was 
able  to  smile  in  return,  while  she  put  out  her 


hand  in  silence ;  and  as  she  seated  herself,  all  the 
while  hearing  the  voice,  she  felt  some  reflux  of 
energy  in  the  confused  sense  that  the  truth  could 
not  be  any  thing  that  she  dreaded.  Mirah  drew 
her  chair  very  near,  as  if  she  felt  that  the  sound 
of  the  conversation  should  be  subdued,  and  look- 
ed at  her  visitor  with  placid  expectation,  while 
Gwendolen  began  in  a  low  tone,  with  something 
that  seemed  like  bashfulness : 

"  Perhaps  you  wonder  to  see  me — perhaps  I 
ought  to  have  written — but  I  wished  to  make  a 
particular  request." 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you  instead  of  having  a  let- 
ter," said  Mirah,  wondering  at  the  changed  ex- 
pression and  manner  of  the  "  Vandyck  duchess," 
as  Hans  had  taught  her  to  call  Gwendolen.  The 
rich  color  and  the  calmness  of  her  own  face 
were  in  strong  contrast  with  the  pale  agitated 
beauty  under  the  plumed  hat. 

"  I  thought,"  Gwendolen  went  on — "  at  least  I 
hoped  you  would  not  object  to  sing  at  our  house 
on  the  4th — in  the  evening — at  a  party  like  Lady 
Brackenshaw's.  I  should  be  so  much  obliged." 

"  I  shall  be  very  happy  to  sing  for  you.  At 
half  past  nine  or  ten  ?"  said  Mirah,  whfle  Gwen- 
dolen seemed  to  get  more  instead  of  less  embar- 


"  At  half  past  nine,  please,"  she  answered ; 
then  paused,  and  felt  that  she  had  nothing  more 
to  say.  She  could  not  go.  It  was  impossible  to 
rise  and  say  good-by.  Deronda's  voice  was  in 
her  ears.  She  must  say  it — she  could  contrive 
no  other  sentence — 

"  Mr.  Deronda  is  in  the  next  room  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Mirah,  in  her  former  tone.  "  He 
is  reading  Hebrew  with  my  brother." 

"You  have  a  brother?"  said  Gwendolen,  who 
had  heard  this  from  Lady  Mallinger,  but  had 
not  minded  it  then. 

"  Yes,  a  dear  brother  who  is  511 — consumptive — 
and  Mr.  Deronda  is  the  best  of  friends  to  him, 
as  he  has  been  to  me,"  said  Mirah,  with  the  im- 
pulse that  will  not  let  us  pass  the  mention  of  a 
precious  person  indifferently. 

"  Tell  me,"  said  Gwendolen,  putting  her  hand 
on  Mirah's,  and  speaking  hardly  above  a  whis- 
per— "  tell  me — tell  me  the  truth.  You  are  sure 
he  is  quite  good  ?  You  know  no  evil  of  him  ? 
Any  evil  that  people  say  of  him  is  false  ?" 

Could  the  proud-spirited  woman  have  behaved 
more  like  a  child  ?  But  the  strange  words  pen- 
etrated Mirah  with  nothing  but  a  sense  of  solem- 
nity and  indignation.  With  a  sudden  light  in 
her  eyes  and  a  tremor  in  her  voice,  she  said, 

4i  Who  are  the  people  that  say  evil  of  him  ? 
I  would  not  believe  any  evil  of  him  if  an  angel 
came  to  tell  it  me.  He  found  me  when  I  was 
so  miserable — I  was  going  to  drown  myself — I 
looked  so  poor  and  forsaken — you  would  have 
thought  I  was  a  beggar  by  the  way-side.  And  he 
treated  me  as  if  I  had  been  a  king's  daughter. 
He  took  me  to  the  best  of  women.  He  found 
my.  brother  for  me.  And  he  honors  my  brother, 
though  he  too  was  poor — oh,  almost  as  poor  as 
he  could  be.  And  my  brother  honors  him.  That 
is  no  light  thing  to  say" — here  Mirah's  .tone 
changed  to  one  of  proud  emphasis,  and  she 
shook  her  head  backward — "for  my  brother  is 
very  learned  and  great-minded.  And  Mr.  De- 
ronda says  there  are  few  men  equal  to  him." 
Some  Jewish  defiance  had  flamed  into  her  indig- 
nant gratitude,  and  her  anger  could  not  help  in- 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


201 


eluding  Gwendolen,  since  she  seemed  to  have 
doubted  Deronda's  goodness. 

But  Gwendolen  was  like  one  parched  with 
thirst,  drinking  the  fresh  water  that  spreads 
through  the  frame  as  a  sufficient  bliss.  She  did 
not  notice  that  Mirah  was  angry  with  her ;  she 
was  not  distinctly  conscious  of  any  thing  but  of 
the  penetrating  sense  that  Deronda  and  his  life 
were  no  more  like  her  husband's  conception  than 
the  morning  in  the  horizon  was  like  the  morning 
mixed  with  street  gas :  even  Mirah's  words  seem- 
ed to  melt  into  the  indefiniteness  of  her  relief. 
She  could  hardly  have  repeated  them,  or  said  how 
her  whole  state  of  feeling  was  changed.  She 
pressed  Mirah's  hand,  and  said,  "Thank  you, 
thank  you,"  in  a  hurried  whisper — then  rose, 
and  added,  with  only  a  hazy  consciousness,  "  I 
must  go ;  I  shall  see  you — on  the  4th — I  am  so 
much  obliged" — bowing  herself  out  automatically ; 
while  Mirah,  opening  the  door  for  her,  wondered  at 
what  seemed  a  sudden  retreat  into  chill  loftiness. 

Gwendolen,  indeed,  had  no  feeling  to  spare  in 
any  effusiveness  toward  the  creature  who  had 
brought  her  relief.  The  passionate  need  of  con- 
tradiction to  Grandcourt's  estimate  of  Deronda,  a 
need  which  had  blunted  her  sensibility  to  every 
thing  else,  was  no  sooner  satisfied  than  she 
wanted  to  be  gone :  she  began  to  be  aware  that 
she  was  out  of  place,  and  to  dread  Deronda's 
seeing  her.  And  once  in  the  carriage  again,  she 
had  the  vision  of  what  awaited  her  at  home. 
When  she  drew  up  before  the  door  in  Grosvenor 
Square,  her  husband  was  arriving  with  a  cigar 
between  his  fingers.  He  threw  it  away  and  hand- 
ed her  out,  accompanying  her  up  stairs.  She 
turned  into  the  drawing-room,  lest  he  should  fol- 
low her  farther  and  give  her  no  place  to  retreat 
to ;  then  sat  down  with  a  weary  air,  taking  off 
her  gloves,  rubbing  her  hand  over  her  forehead, 
and  making  his  presence  as  much  of  a  cipher  as 
possible.  But  he  sat  too,  and  not  far  from  her 
— just  in  front,  where  to  avoid  looking  at  him 
must  have  the  emphasis  of  effort. 

"  May  I  ask  where  you  have  been  at  this  ex- 
traordinary hour  ?"  said  Grandcourt. 

"  Oh  yes ;  I  have  been  to  Miss  Lapidoth's  to 
ask  her  to  come  and  sing  for  us,"  said  Gwendo- 
len, laying  her  gloves  on  the  little  table  beside 
her,  and  looking  down  at  them. 

"  And  to  ask  her  about  her  relations  with  De- 
ronda ?"  said  Grandcourt,  with  the  coldest  possi- 
ble sneer  in  his  low  voice,  which  in  poor  Gwen- 
dolen's ear  was  diabolical. 

For  the  first  time  since  their  marriage  she 
flashed  out  upon  him  without  inward  check. 
Turning  her  eyes  full  on  his,  she  said,  in  a  biting 
tone, 

"  Yes ;  and  what  you  said  is  false — a  low, 
wicked  fals€hood." 

"  She  told  you  so — did  she  ?"  returned  Grand- 
court,  with  a  more  thoroughly  distilled  sneer. 

Gwendolen  was  mute.  The  daring  anger  with- 
in her  was  turned  into  the  rage  of  dumbness. 
What  reasons  for  her  belief  could  she  give  ?  All 
the  reasons  that  seemed  so  strong  and  living 
within  her — she  saw  them  suffocated  and  shriv- 
eled up  under  her  husband's  breath.  There  was 
no  proof  to  give,  but  her  own  impression,  which 
would  seem  to  him  her  own  folly.  She  turned 
her  head  quickly  away  from  him,  and  looked  an- 
grily toward  the  end  of  the  room :  she  would  have 
risen,  but  he  was  in  her  way. 


Grandcourt  saw  his  advantage.  "It's  of  no 
consequence  so  far  as  her  singing  goes,"  he  said, 
in  his  superficial  drawl.  "  You  can  have  her  to 
sing,  if  you  like."  Then,  after  a  pause,  he  added, 
in  his  lowest  imperious  tone,  "  But  you  will  please 
to  observe  that  you  are  not  to  go  near  that  house 
again.  As  my  wife,  you  must  take  my  word 
about  what  is  proper  for  you.  When  you  under- 
took to  be  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  you  undertook  not 
to  make  a  fool  of  yourself.  You  have  been  mak- 
ing a  fool  of  yourself  this  morning;  and  if  you 
were  to  go  on  as  you  have  begun,  you  might  soon 
get  yourself  talked  of  at  the  clubs  in  a  way  you 
would  not  like.  What  do  you  know  about  the 
world  ?  You  have  married  me,  and  must  be 
guided  by  my  opinion." 

Every  slow  sentence  of  that  speech  had  a  ter- 
rific mastery  in  it  for  Gwendolen's  nature.  If 
the  low  tones  had  come  from  a  physician  telling 
her  that  her  symptoms  were  those  of  a  fatal  dis- 
ease, and  prognosticating  its  course,  she  could 
not  have  been  more  helpless  against  the  argument 
that  lay  in  it.  But  she.  was  permitted  to  move 
now,  and  her  husband  never  again  made  any  ref- 
erence to  what  had  occurred  this  morning.  He 
knew  the  force  of  his  own  words.  If  this  white- 
handed  man  with  the  perpendicular  profile  had 
been  sent  to  govern  a  difficult  colony,  he  might 
have  won  reputation  among  his  contemporaries. 
He  had  certainly  ability,  would  have  understood 
that  it  was  safer  to  exterminate  than  to  cajole 
superseded  proprietors,  and  would  not  have 
flinched  from  making  things  safe  in  that  way. 

Gwendolen  did  not,  for  all  this,  part  with  her 
recovered  faith — rather,  she  kept  it  with  a  more 
anxious  tenacity,  as  a  Protestant  of  old  kept  his 
Bible  hidden  or  a  Catholic  his  crucifix,  according 
to  the  side  favored  by  the  civil  arm ;  and  it  was 
characteristic  of  her  that  apart  from  the  impres- 
sion gained  concerning  Deronda  in  that  visit,  her 
imagination  was  little  occupied  with  Mirah  or  the 
eulogized  brother.  The  one  result  established 
for  her  was  that  Deronda  had  acted  simply  as  a 
generous  benefactor,  and  the  phrase  "  reading 
Hebrew"  had  fleeted  unimpressively  across  her 
sense  of  hearing,  as  a  stray  stork  might  have 
made  its  peculiar  flight  across  her  landscape  with- 
out rousing  any  surprised  reflection  on  its  natural 
history. 

But  the  issue  of  that  visit,  as  it  regarded  her 
husband,  took  a  strongly  active  part  in  the  proc- 
ess which  made  a  habitual  conflict  within  her,  and 
was  the  cause  of  some  external  change  perhaps 
not  observed  by  any  one  except  Deronda.  As 
the  weeks  went  on,  bringing  occasional  transient 
interviews  with  her,  he  thought  that  he  perceived 
in  her  an  intensifying  of  her  superficial  hardness 
and  resolute  display,  which  made  her  abrupt  be- 
trayals of  agitation  the  more  marked  and  disturb- 
ing to  him. 

In  fact,  she  was  undergoing  a  sort  of  discipline 
for  the  refractory  which,  as  little  as  possible  like 
conversion,  bends  half  the  self  with  a  terrible 
strain,  and  exasperates  the  unwillingness  of  the 
other  half.  Grandcourt  had  an  active  divination 
rather  than  discernment  of  refractoriness  in  her, 
and  what  had  happened  about  Mirah  quickened 
his  suspicion  that  there  was  an  increase  of  it  de- 
pendent on  the  occasions  when  she  happened  to 
see  Deronda :  there  was  some  "  confounded  non- 
sense" between  them :  he  did  not  imagine  it  ex- 
actly as  flirtation,  and  his  imagination  in  other 


202 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


branches  was  rather  restricted;  but  it  was  non- 
sense that  evidently  kept  up  a  kind  of  simmering 
in  her  mind — an  inward  action  which  might  be- 
come disagreeably  outward.  Husbands  in  the 
old  tune  are  known  to  have  suffered  from  a 
threatening  devoutness  in  their  wives,  presenting 
itself  first  indistinctly  as  oddity,  and  ending  in 
that  mild  form  of  lunatic  asylum,  a  nunnery: 
Grandcourt  had  a  vague  perception  of  threaten- 
ing moods  in  Gwendolen  which  the  unity  between 
them  in  his  views  of  marriage  required  him  per- 
emptorily to  check.  Among  the  means  he  chose, 
one  was  peculiar,  and  was  less  ably  calculated 
than  the  speeches  we  have  just  heard. 

He  determined  that  she  should  know  the  main 
purport  of  the  will  he  was  making,  but  he  could 
not  communicate  this  himself,  because  it  involved 
the  fact  of  his  relation  to  Mrs.  Glasher  and  her 
children ;  and  that  there  should  be  any  overt  rec- 
ognition of  this  between  Gwendolen  and  himself 
was  supremely  repugnant  to  him.  Like  all  proud, 
closely  wrapped  natures,  he  shrank  from  explicit- 
ness  and  detail,  even  on  trivialities,  if  they  were 
personal :  a  valet  must  maintain  a  strict  reserve 
with  him  on  the  subject  of  shoes  and  stockings. 
And  clashing  was  intolerable  to  him :  his  habitu- 
al want  was  to  put  collision  out  of  the  question 
by  the  quiet  massive  pressure  of  his  rule.  But 
he  wished  Gwendolen  to  know  that  before  he 
made  her  an  offer  it  was  no  secret  to  him  that 
she  was  aware  of  his  relations  with  Lydia,  her 
previous  knowledge  being  the  apology  for  bring- 
ing the  subject  before  her  now.  Some  men  in 
his  place  might  have  thought  of  writing  what  he 
wanted  her  to  know,  in  the  form  of  a  letter.  But 
Grandcourt  hated  writing:  even  writing  a  note 
was  a  bore  to  him,  and  he  had  long  been  accus- 
tomed to  have  all  his  writing  done  by  Lush.  We 
know  that  there  are  persons  who  will  forego  their 
own  obvious  interest  rather  than  do  any  thing  so 
disagreeable  as  to  write  letters;  and  it  is  not 
probable  that  these  imperfect  utilitarians  would 
rush  into  manuscript  and  syntax  on  a  difficult 
subject  in  order  to  save  another's  feelings.  To 
Grandcourt  it  could  not  even  occur  that  he  should, 
would,  or  could  write  to  Gwendolen  the  informa- 
tion in  question ;  and  the  only  medium  of  com- 
munication he  could  use  was  Lush,  who,  to  his 
mind,  was  as  much  of  an  implement  as  pen  and 
paper.  But  here  too  Grandcourt  had  his  re- 
serves, and  would  not  have  uttered  a  word  likely 
to  encourage  Lush  in  an  impudent  sympathy  with 
any  supposed  grievance  in  a  marriage  which  had 
been  discommended  by  him.  Who  that  has  a 
confidant  escapes  believing  too  little  in  his  pene- 
tration, and  too  much  in  his  discretion  ?  Grand- 
court  had  always  allowed  Lush  to  know  his  ex- 
ternal affairs  indiscriminately,  irregularities, debts, 
want  of  ready  money ;  he  had  only  used  discrim- 
ination about  what  he  would  allow  his  confidant 
to  say  to  him ;  and  he  had  been  so  accustomed  to 
this  human  tool  that  the  having  him  at  call  hi 
London  was  a  recovery  of  lost  ease.  It  followed 
that  Lush  knew  all  the  provisions  of  the  will 
more  exactly  than  they  were  known  to  the  testa- 
tor himself. 

Grandcourt  did  not  doubt  that  Gwendolen, 
since  she  was  a  woman  who  could  put  two  and 
two  together,  knew  or  suspected  Lush  to  be  the 
contriver  of  her  interview  with  Lydia,  and  that 
this  was  the  reason  why  her  first  request  was 
for  his  banishment.  But  the  bent  of  a  woman's 


inferences  on  mixed  subjects  which  excite  mixed 
passions  is  not  determined  by  her  capacity  for 
simple  addition ;  and  here  Grandcourt  lacked  the 
only  organ  of  thinking  that  could  have  saved 
him  from  mistake,  namely,  some  experience  of 
the  mixed  passions  concerned.  He  had  correctly 
divined  one-half  of  Gwendolen's  dread — all  that 
related  to  her  personal  pride,  and  her  perception 
that  his  will  must  conquer  hers ;  but  the  remorse- 
ful half,  even  if  he  had  known  of  her  broken 
promise,  was  as  much  out  of  his  imagination  as 
the  other  side  of  the  moon.  What  he  believed 
her  to  feel  about  Lydia  was  solely  a  tongue-tied 
jealousy,  and  what  he  believed  Lydia  to  have 
written  with  the  jewels  was  the  fact  that  she  had 
once  been  used  to  wearing  them,  with  other  amen- 
ities such  as  he  imputed  to  the  intercourse  of 
jealous  women.  He  had  the  triumphant  certainty 
that  he  could  aggravate  the  jealousy  and  yet  smite 
it  with  a  more  absolute  dumbness.  His  object 
was  to  engage  all  his  wife's  egoism  on  the  same 
side  as  his  own,  and  in  his  employment  of  Lush 
he  did  not  intend  an  insult  to  her :  she  ought  to 
understand  that  he  was  the  only  possible  envoy. 
Grandcourt's  view  of  things  was  considerably 
fenced  in  by  his  general  sense  that  what  suited 
him,  others  must  put  up  with.  There  is  no  es- 
caping the  fact  that  want  of  sympathy  condemns 
us  to  a  corresponding  stupidity.  Mephistopheles 
thrown  upon  real  life,  and  obliged  to  manage  his 
own  plots,  would  inevitably  make  blunders. 

One  morning  he  went  to  Gwendolen  in  the  bou- 
doir beyond  the  back  drawing-room,  hat  and 
gloves  in  hand,  and  said,  with  his  best-tempered, 
most  persuasive  drawl,  standing  before  her  and 
looking  down  on  her  as  she  sat  with  a  book  on 
her  lap, 

"  A — Gwendolen,  there's  some  business  about 
property  to  be  explained.  I  have  told  Lush  to 
come  and  explain  it  to  you.  He  knows  all  about 
these  things.  I  am  going  out.  He  can  come  up 
now.  He's  the  only  person  who  can  explain.  I 
suppose  you'll  not  mind." 

"  You  know  that  I  do  mind,"  said  Gwendolen, 
angrily,  starting  up.  "  I  shall  not  see  him."  She 
showed  the  intention  to  dart  away  to  the  door. 
Grandcourt  was  before  her,  with  his  back  toward 
it.  He  was  prepared  for  her  anger,  and  showed 
none  in  return,  saying,  with  the  same  sort  of  re- 
monstrant tone  that  he  might  have  used  about  an 
objection  to  dining  out, 

"  It's  no  use  making  a  fuss.  There  are  plenty 
of  brutes  in  the  world  that  one  has  to  talk  to. 
People  with  any  savoir  vivro  don't  make  a  fuss 
about  such  things.  Some  business  must  be  done. 
You  don't  expect  agreeable  people  to  do  it.  If 
I  employ  Lush,  the  proper  thing  for  you  is  to 
take  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  Not  to  make  a 
fuss  about  it.  Not  to  toss  your  head  and  bite 
your  lips  about  people  of  that  sort." 

The  drawling  and  the  pauses  with  which  this 
speech  was  uttered  gave  time  for  crowding  re- 
flections in  Gwendolen,  quelling  her  resistance. 
What  was  there  to  be  told  her  about  property  ? 
This  word  had  certain  dominant  associations  for 
her,  first  with  her  mother,  then  with  Mrs.  Gla- 
sher and  her  children.  What  would  be  the 
uso  if  she  refused  to  see  Lush  ?  Could  she  ask 
Grandcourt  to  tell  her  himself  ?  That  might  be 
intolerable,  even  if  he  consented,  which  it  was 
certain  he  would  not,  if  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  the  contrary.  The  humiliation  of  stand- 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


ing  an  obvious  prisoner,  with  her  husband  bar- 
ring the  door,  was  not  to  be  borne  any  longer, 
and  she  turned  away  to  lean  against  a  cabinet, 
while  Grandcourt  again  moved  toward  her. 

"  I  have  arranged  with  Lush  to  come  up  now, 
while  I  am  out,"  he  said,  after  a  long  organ  stop, 
during  which  Gwendolen  made  no  sign.  "  Shall 
I  tell  him  he  may  come  ?" 

Yet  another  pause  before  she  could  say  "  Yes" 
— her  face  turned  obliquely  and  her  eyes  cast 
down. 

"  I  shall  come  back  in  time  to  ride,  if  you  like 
to  get  ready,"  said  Grandcourt.  No  answer. 
"  She  is  in  a  desperate  rage,"  thought  he.  But 
the  rage  was  silent,  and  therefore  not  disagree- 
able to  him.  It  followed  that  he  turned  her 
chin  and  kissed  her,  while  she  still  kept  her  eye- 
lids down,  and  she  did  not  move  them  until  he 
was  on  the  other  side  of  the  door. 

What  was  she  to  do?  Search  where  she 
would  in  her  consciousness,  she  found  no  plea  to 
justify  a  plaint.  Any  romantic  illusions  she  had 
had  in  marrying  this  man  had  turned  on  her 
power  of  using  him  as  she  liked.  He  was  using 
her  as  he  liked. 

She  sat  awaiting  the  announcement  of  Lush 
as  a  sort  of  searing  operation  that  she  had  to  go 
through.  The  facts  that  galled  her  gathered  a 
burning  power  when  she  thought  of  their  lying 
in  his  mind.  It  was  all  a  part  of  that  new  gam- 
bling in  which  the  losing  was  not  simply  a  minus, 
but  a  terrible  plus  that  had  never  entered  into 
her  reckoning. 

Lush  was  neither  quite  pleased  nor  quite  dis- 
pleased with  his  task.  Grandcourt  had  said  to 
him,  by  way  of  conclusion,  "  Don't  make  yourself 
more  disagreeable  than  nature  obliges  you." 

"  That  depends,"  thought  Lush.  But  he  said, 
"  I  will  write  a  brief  abstract  for  Mrs.  Grandcourt 
to  read."  He  did  not  suggest  that  he  should 
make  the  whole  communication  in  writing,  which 
was  a  proof  that  the  interview  did  not  wholly  dis- 
please him. 

Some  provision  was  being  made  for  himself  in 
the  will,  and  he  had  no  reason  to  be  in  a  bad  hu- 
mor, even  if  a  bad  humor  had  been  common  with 
him.  He  was  perfectly  convinced  that  he  had 
penetrated  all  the  secrets  of  the  situation ;  but  he 
had  no  diabolic  delight  in  it.  He  had  only  the 
small  movements  of  gratified  self-loving  resent- 
ment in  discerning  that  this  marriage  fulfilled  his 
own  foresight  in  not  being  as  satisfactory  as  the 
supercilious  young  lady  had  expected  it  to  be,  and 
as  Grandcourt  wished  to  feign  that  it  was.  He 
had  no  persistent  spite  much  stronger  than  what 
gives  the  seasoning  of  ordinary  scandal  to  those 
who  repeat  it  and  exaggerate  it  by  their  conject- 
ures. With  no  active  compassion  or  good- will,  he 
had  just  as  little  active  malevolence,  being  chiefly 
occupied  in  liking  his  particular  pleasures,  and 
not  disliking  any  thing  but  what  hindered  those 
pleasures — every  thing  else  ranking  with  the  lasl 
murder  and  the  last  opera  biiffa,  under  the  head 
of  things  to  talk  about.  Nevertheless,  he  was  not 
indifferent  to  the  prospect  of  being  treated  un- 
civilly by  a  beautiful  woman,  or  to  the  counter- 
balancing fact  that  his  present  commission  put 
into  his  hands  an  official  power  of  humiliating 
her.  He  did  not  mean  to  use  it  needlessly  ;  bu 
there  are  some  persons  so  gifted  in  relation  to  ui 
that  their  "  How  do  you  do  ?"  seems  charged  with 
offense. 


By  the  time  that  Mr.  Lush  was  announced, 
Grwendolen  had  braced  herself  to  a  bitter  resolve 
hat  he  should  not  witness  the  slightest  betrayal 
f  her  feeling,  whatever  he  might  have  to  tell, 
she  invited  him  to  sit  down,  with  stately  quietude. 
After  all,  what  was  this  man  to  her  ?  He  was  not 
n  the  least  like  her  husband.  Her  power  of  hat- 
ng  a  coarse,  familiar-mannered  man,  with  clumsy 
lands,  was  now  relaxed  by  the  intensity  with 
which  she  hated  his  contrast. 

He  held  a  small  paper  folded  in  his  hand  while 
ic  spoke. 

"  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  should  not  have  pre- 
ented  myself  if  Mr.  Grandcourt  had  not  express- 
jd  a  strong  wish  to  that  effect — as  no  doubt  he 
las  mentioned  to  you." 

From  some  voices  that  speech  might  have 
sounded  entirely  reverential,  and  even  timidly 
pologetic.  Lush  had  no  intention  to  the  con- 
,rary,  but  to  Gwendolen's  ear  his  words  had  as 
much  insolence  in  them  as  his  prominent  eyes, 
and  the  pronoun  "you"  was  too  familiar.  He 
ought  to  have  addressed  the  folding-screen,  and 
spoken  of  her  as  Mrs.  Grandcourt.  She  gave  the 
smallest  sign  of  a  bow,  and  Lush  went  on,  with  a 
ittle  awkwardness,  getting  entangled  in  what  is 
elegantly  called  tautology. 

My  having  been  in  Mr.  Grandcourt's  confi- 
dence for  fifteen  years  or  more — since  he  was  a 
routh,  in  fact — of  course  gives  me  a  peculiar 
position.  He  can  speak  to  me  of  affairs  that  ho 
jould  not  mention  to  any  one  else ;  and,  in  fact, 
tie  could  not  have  employed  any  one  else  in  this 
affair.  I  have  accepted  the  task  out  of  friend- 
ship for  him.  Which  is  my  apology  for  accept- 
ing the  task — if  you  would  have  preferred  some 
one  else." 

He  paused,  but  she  made  no  sign,  and  Lush,  to 
give  himself  a  countenance  in  an  apology  which 
met  no  acceptance,  opened  the  folded  paper,  and 
looked  at  it  vaguely  before  he  began  to  speak 
again.  ^ 

"  This  paper  contains  some  information  about 
Mr.  Grandcourt's  will,  an  abstract  of  a  part  he 
wished  you  to  know — if  you'll  be  good  enough  to 
cast  your  eyes  over  it.  But  there  is  something  I 
had  to  say  by  way  of  introduction — which  I  hope 
you'll  pardon  me  for,  if  it's  not  quite  agreeable." 
Lush  found  that  he  was  behaving  better  than  he 
had  expected,  and  had  no  idea  how  insulting  he 
made  himself  with  his  "not  quite  agreeable." 

"  Say  what  you  have  to  say  without  apologiz- 
ing, please,"  said  Gwendolen,  with  the  air  she 
might  have  bestowed  on  a  dog-stealer  come  to 

laim  a  reward  for  finding  the  dog  he  had 
stolen. 

1 1  have  only  to  remind  you  of  something  that 
occurred  before  your  engagement  to  Mr.  Grand- 
court,"  said  Lush,  not  without  the  rise  of  some 
willing  insolence  in  exchange  for  her  scorn. 
"  You  met  a  lady  in  Cardell  Chase,  if  you  remem- 
ber, who  spoke  to  you  of  her  position  with  regard 
to  Mr.  Grandcourt.  She  had  children  with  her— 
one  a  very  fine  boy." 

Gwendolen's  lips  were  almost  as  pale  as  her 
cheeks:  her  passion  had  no  weapons  —  words 
were  no  better  than  chips.  This  man's  speech 
was  like  a  sharp  knife-edge  drawn  across  her 
skin;  but  even  her  indignation  at  the  employ- 
ment of  Lush  was  getting  merged  in  a  crowd  of 
other  feelings,  dim  and  alarming  as  a  crowd  of 
ghosts. 


204 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"  Mr.  Grandcourt  was  aware  that  you  were  ac- 
quainted with  this  unfortunate  affair  beforehand, 
and  he  thinks  it  only  right  that  his  position  and 
intentions  should  be  made  quite  clear  to  you.  It 
is  an  affair  of  property  and  prospects ;  and  if 
there  were  any  objection  you  had  to  make,  if  you 
would  mention  it  to  me — it  is  a  subject  which,  of 
course,  he  would  rather  not  speak  about  himself 
— if  you  will  be  good  enough  just  to  read  this." 
With  the  last  words  Lush  rose  and  presented  the 
paper  to  her. 

When  Gwendolen  resolved  that  she  would  be- 
tray no  feeling  in  the  presence  of  this  man,  she 
had  not  prepared  herself  to  hear  that  her  husband 
knew  the  silent  consciousness,  the  silently  ac- 
cepted terms,  on  which  she  had  married  him.  She 
dared  not  raise  her  hand  to  take  the  paper,  lest 
it  should  visibly  tremble.  For  a  moment  Lush 
stood  holding  it  toward  her,  and  she  felt  his  gaze 
on  her  as  ignominy,  before  she  could  say  even 
with  low-toned  haughtiness, 

"  Lay  it  on  the  table.  And  go  into  the  next 
room,  please." 

Lush  obeyed,  thinking  as  he  took  an  easy-chair 
in  the  back  drawing-room,  "  My  lady  winces  con- 
siderably. She  didn't  know  what  would  be  the 
charge  for  that  superfine  article,  Henleigh  Grand- 
court."  But  it  seemed  to  him  that  a  penniless 
girl  had  done  better  than  she  had  any  right  to 
expect,  and  that  she  had  been  uncommonly  know- 
ing for  her  years  and  opportunities :  her  words 
to  Lydia  meant  nothing,  and  her  running  away 
had  probably  been  part  of  her  adroitness.  It  had 
turned  out  a  master-stroke. 

Meanwhile  Gwendolen  was  rallying  her  nerves 
to  the  reading  of  the  paper.  She  must  read  it. 
Her  whole  being — pride,  longing  for  rebellion, 
dreams  of  freedom,  remorseful  conscience,  dread 
of  fresh  visitation — all  made  one  need  to  know 
what  the  paper  contained.  But  at  first  it  was 
not  easy  to  take  in  the  meaning  of  the  words. 
When  she  had  succeeded,  she  found  that  in  the 
case  of  there  being  no  son  as  issue  of  her  mar- 
riage, Grandcourt  had  made  the  small  Henleigh 
his  heir ;  that  was  all  she  cared  to  extract  from 
the  paper  with  any  distinctness.  The  other  state- 
ments as  to  what  provision  would  be  made  for 
her  in  the  same  case,  she  hurried  over,  getting 
only  a  confused  perception  of  thousands  and 
Gadsmere.  It  was  enough.  She  could  dismiss 
the  man  in  the  next  room  with  the  defiant  ener- 
gy which  had  revived  in  her  at  the  idea  that  this 
question  of  property  and  inheritance  was  meant 
as  a  finish  to  her  humiliations  and  her  thralldom. 

She  thrust  the  paper  between  the  leaves  of  her 
book,  which  she  took  in  her  hand,  and  walked 
with  her  stateliest  air  into  the  next  room,  where 
Lush  immediately  rose,  awaiting  her  approach. 
When  she  was  four  yards  from  him,  it  was  hardly 
an  instant  that  she  paused  to  say  in  a  high  tone, 
while  she  swept  him  with  her  eyelashes, 

"Tell  Mr.  Grandcourt  that  his  arrangements 
are  just  what  I  desired" — passing  on  without 
haste,  and  leaving  Lush  time  to  mingle  some 
admiration  of  her  graceful  back  with  that  half- 
amused  sense  of  her  spirit  and  impertinence 
which  he  expressed  by  raising  his  eyebrows  and 
just  thrusting  his  tongue  between  his  teeth.  He 
really  did  not  want  her  to  be  worse  punished,  and 
he  was  glad  to  think  that  it  was  time  to  go  and 
lunch  at  the  club,  where  he  meant  to  have  a  lob- 
ster salad. 


What  did  Gwendolen  look  forward  to  ?  When 
her  husband  returned  he  found  her  equipped  in 
her  riding  dress,  ready  to  ride  out  with  him.  She 
was  not  again  going  to  be  hysterical,  or  take  to 
her  bed  and  say  she  was  ill.  That  was  the  im- 
plicit resolve  adjusting  her  muscles  before  she 
could  have  framed  it  in  words  as  she  walked  out 
of  the  room,  leaving  Lush  behind  her.  She  was 
going  to  act  in  the  spirit  of  her  message,  and  not 
to  give  herself  time  to  reflect.  She  rang  the 
bell  for  her  maid,  and  went  with  the  usual  care 
through  her  change  of  toilet.  Doubtless  her  hus- 
band had  meant  to  produce  a  great  effect  on  her : 
by-and-by  perhaps  she  would  let  him  see  an  effect 
the  very  opposite  of  what  he  intended ;  but  at 
present  all  that  she  could  show  was  a  defiant 
satisfaction  in  what  had  been  presumed  to  be  dis- 
agreeable. It  came  as  an  instinct  rather  than  a 
thought,  that  to  show  any  sign  which  could  be 
interpreted  as  jealousy,  when  she  had  just  been 
insultingly  reminded  that  the  conditions  were 
what  she  had  accepted  with  her  eyes  open,  would 
be  the  worst  self-humiliation.  She  said  to  herself 
that  she  had  not  time  to-day  to  be  clear  about 
her  future  actions ;  all  she  could  be  clear  about 
was  that  she  would  match  her  husband  in  ignor- 
ing any  ground  for  excitement.  She  not  only 
rode,  but  went  out  with  him  to  dine,  contributing 
nothing  to  alter  their  mutual  manner,  which  was 
never  that  of  rapid  interchange  in  discourse ;  and 
curiously  enough  she  rejected  a  handkerchief  on 
which  her  maid  had  by  mistake  put  the  wrong 
scent — a  scent  that  Grandcourt  had  once  objected 
to.  Gwendolen  would  not  have  liked  to  be  an  ob- 
ject of  disgust  to  this  husband  whom  she  hated  : 
she  liked  all  disgust  to  be  on  her  side. 

But  to  defer  thought  in  this  way  was  some- 
thing like  trying  to  talk  down  the  singing  in  her 
own  ears.  The  thought  that  is  bound  up  with 
our  passion  is  as  penetrative  as  air — every  thing 
is  porous  to  it ;  bows,  smiles,  conversation,  repar- 
tee, are  mere  honey-combs  where  such  thought 
rushes  freely,  not  always  with  a  taste  of  honey. 
And  without  shutting  herself  up  in  any  solitude, 
Gwendolen  seemed  at  the  end  of  nine  or  ten 
hours  to  have  gone  through  a  labyrinth  of  reflec- 
tion, in  which  already  the  same  succession  of 
prospects  had  been  repeated,  the  same  fallacious 
outlets  rejected,  the  same  shrinking  from  the 
necessities  of  every  course.  Already  she  was 
undergoing  some  hardening  effect  from  feeling 
that  she  was  under  eyes  which  saw  her  past  ac- 
tions solely  in  the  light  of  her  lowest  motives. 
She  lived  back  in  the  scenes  of  her  courtship, 
with  the  new  bitter  consciousness  of  what  had 
been  in  Grandcourt's  mind — certain  now,  with 
her  present  experience  of  him,  that  he  had  had  a 
peculiar  triumph  in  conquering  her  dumb  repug- 
nance, and  that  ever  since  their  marriage  he  had 
had  a  cold  exultation  in  knowing  her  fancied 
secret.  Her  imagination  exaggerated  every  ty- 
rannical impulse  he  was  capable  of.  "  I  will  in- 
sist on  being  separated  from  him,"  was  her  first 
darting  determination ;  then,  "  I  will  leave  him, 
whether  he  consents  or  not.  If  this  boy  becomes 
his  heir,  I  have  made  an  atonement."  But  nei- 
ther in  darkness  nor  in  daylight  could  she  imagine 
the  scenes  which  must  carry  out  those  determina- 
tions with  the  courage  to  feel  them  endurable. 
How  could  she  run  away  to  her  own  family,  carry 
distress  among  them,  and  render  herself  an  ob- 
ject of  scandal  in  the  society  she  had  left  behind 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


205 


her  ?  What  future  lay  before  her  as  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  gone  back  to  her  mother,  who  would  be 
made  destitute  again  by  the  rupture  of  the  mar- 
riage for  which  one  chief  excuse  had  been  that  it 
had  brought  that  mother  a  maintenance  ?  She 
had  lately  been  seeing  her  uncle  and  Anna  in  Lon- 
don, and  though  she  had  been  saved  from  any  diffi- 
culty about  inviting  them  to  stay  in  Grosvenor 
Square  by  their  wish  to  be  with  Rex,  who  would 
not  risk  a  meeting  with  her,  the  transient  visits  she 
had  had  from  them  helped  now  in  giving  stronger 
color  to  the  picture  of  what  it  would  be  for  her  to 
take  refuge  in  her  own  family.  What  could  she 
say  to  justify  her  flight?  Her  uncle  would  tell 
her  to  go  back.  Her  mother  would  cry.  Her 
aunt  and  Anna  would  look  at  her  with  wondering 
alarm.  Her  husband  would  have  power  to  com- 
pel her.  She  had  absolutely  nothing  that  she 
could  allege  against  him  in  judicious  or  judicial 
ears.  And  to  "  insist  on  separation !"  That  was 
an  easy  combination  of  words ;  but  considered  as 
an  action  to  be  executed  against  Grandcourt,  it 
would  be  about  as  practicable  as  to  give  him  a 
pliant  disposition  and  a  dread  of  other  people's 
unwillingness.  How  was  she  to  begin?  What 
was  she  to  say  that  would  not  be  a  condemnation 
of  herself?  "If  I  am  to  have  misery  anyhow," 
was  the  bitter  refrain  of  her  rebellious  dreams,  "  I 
had  better  have  the  misery  that  I  can  keep  to  my- 
self." Moreover,  her  capability  of  rectitude  told 
her  again  and  again  that  she  had  no  right  to  com- 
plain of  her  contract,  or  to  withdraw  from  it. 

And  always  among  the  images  that  drove  her 
back  to  submission  was  Deronda.  The  idea  of 
herself  separated  from  her  husband  gave  Deron- 
da a  changed,  perturbing,  painful  place  in  her  con- 
sciousness :  instinctively  she  felt  that  the  separa- 
tion would  be  from  him  too,  and  in  the  prospective 
vision  of  herself  as  a  solitary,  dubiously  regarded 
woman  she  felt  some  tingling  bashfulness  at  the 
remembrance  of  her  behavior  toward  him.  The 
association  of  Deronda  with  a  dubious  position 
for  herself  was  intolerable.  And  what  would  he 
say  if  he  knew  every  thing  ?  Probably  that  she 
ought  to  bear  what  she  had  brought  on  herself, 
unless  she  were  sure  that  she  could  make  herself 
a  better  woman  by  taking  any  other  course.  And 
what  sort  of  woman  was  she  to  be — solitary,  sick- 
ened of  life,  looked  at  with  a  suspicious  kind  of 
pity? — even  if  she  could  dream  of  success  in 
getting  that  dreary  freedom.  Mrs.  Grandcourt 
"run  away"  would  be  a  more  pitiable  creature 
than  Gwendolen  Harleth  condemned  to  teach  the 
bishop's  daughters,  and  to  be  inspected  by  Mrs. 
Mompert. 

One  characteristic  trait  in  her  conduct  is  worth 
mentioning.  She  would  not  look  a  second  time 
at  the  paper  Lush  had  given  her ;  and  before  ring- 
ing for  her  maid  she  locked  it  up  in  a  traveling- 
desk  which  was  at  hand,  proudly  resolved  against 
curiosity  about  what  was  allotted  to  herself  in 
connection  with  Gadsmere — feeling  herself  brand- 
ed in  the  minds  of  her  husband  and  his  confidant 
with  the  meanness  that  would  accept  marriage 
and  wealth  on  any  conditions,  however  dishonor- 
able and  humiliating. 

Day  after  day  the  same  pattern  of  thinking 
was  repeated.  There  came  nothing  to  change 
the  situation — no  new  elements  in  the  sketch — 
only  a  recurrence  which  engraved  it.  The  May 
weeks  went  on  into  June,  and  still  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  was  outwardly  in  the  same  place,  present- 


ing herself  as  she  was  expected  to  do  in  the  ac- 
customed scenes,  with  the  accustomed  grace, 
beauty,  and  costume ;  from  church  at  one  end  of 
the  week,  through  all  the  scale  of  desirable  re- 
ceptions, to  opera  at  the  other.  Church  was  not 
markedly  distinguished  in  her  mind  from  the  oth- 
er forms  of  self-presentation,  for  marriage  had 
included  no  instruction  that  enabled  her  to  con- 
nect liturgy  and  sermon  with  any  larger  order  of 
the  world  than  that  of  unexplained  and  perhaps 
inexplicable  social  fashions.  While  a  laudable 
zeal  was  laboring  to  carry  the  light  of  spiritual 
law  up  the  alleys  where  law  is  chiefly  known  as 
the  policeman,  the  brilliant  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  con- 
descending a  little  to  a  fashionable  Rector  and 
conscious  of  a  feminine  advantage  over  a  learned 
Dean,  was,  so  far  as  pastoral  care  and  religious 
fellowship  were  concerned,  in  as  complete  a  soli- 
tude as  a  man  in  a  light-house. 

Can  we  wonder  at  the  practical  submission 
which  hid  her  constructive  rebellion  ?  The  com- 
bination is  common  enough,  as  we  know  from 
the  number  of  persons  who  make  us  aware  of  it 
in  their  own  case  by  a  clamorous  unwearied 
statement  of  the  reasons  against  their  submit- 
ting to  a  situation  which,  on  inquiry,  we  discover 
to  be  the  least  disagreeable  within  their  reach. 
Poor  Gwendolen  had  both  too  much  and  too  lit- 
tle mental  power  and  dignity  to  make  herself  ex- 
ceptional. JXb  wonder  that  Deronda  now  mark- 
ed some  hardening  in  a  look  and  manner  which 
were  schooled  daily  to  the  suppression  of  feeling. 

For  example.  One  morning,  riding  in  Rotten 
Row  with  Grandcourt  by  her  side,  she  saw  stand- 
ing against  the  railing  at  the  turn,  just  facing  them, 
a  dark-eyed  lady  with  a  little  girl  and  a  blonde 
boy,  whom  she  at  once  recognized  as  the  beings 
in  all  the  world  the  most  painful  for  her  to  be- 
hold. She  and  Grandcourt  had  just  slackened 
their  pace  to  a  walk ;  he,  being  on  the  outer  side, 
was  the  nearer  to  the  unwelcome  vision,  and 
Gwendolen  had  not  presence  of  mind  to  do  any 
thing  but  glance  away  from  the  dark  eyes  that 
met  hers  piercingly  toward  Grandcourt,  who 
wheeled  past  the  group  with  an  unmoved  face, 
giving  no  sign  of  recognition. 

Immediately  she  felt  a  rising  rage  against  him 
mingling  with  her  shame  for  herself,  and  the 
words,  "  You  might  at  least  have  raised  your  hat 
to  her,"  flew  impetuously  to  her  lips — but  did  not 
pass  them.  If  as  her  husband,  in  her  company, 
he  chose  to  ignore  these  creatures  whom  she  her- 
self had  excluded  from  the  place  she  was  filling, 
how  could  she  be  the  person  to  reproach  him  ? 
She  was  dumb. 

It  was  not  chance,  but  her  own  design,  that  had 
brought  Mrs.  Glasher  there  with  her  boy.  She 
had  come  to  town  under  the  pretext  of  making 
purchases — really  wanting  educational  apparatus 
for  the  children,  and  had  had  interviews  with 
Lush  in  which  he  had  not  refused  to  soothe  her 
uneasy  mind  by  representing  the  probabilities  as 
all  on  the  side  of  her  ultimate  triumph.  Let  her 
keep  quiet,  and  she  might  live  to  see  the  marriage 
dissolve  itself  in  one  way  or  other — Lush  hinted 
at  several  ways — leaving  the  succession  assured  to 
her  boy.  She  had  had  an  interview  with  Grand- 
court  too,  who  had,  as  usual,  told  her  to  behave 
like  a  reasonable  woman,  and  threatened  punish- 
ment if  she  were  troublesome ;  but  had,  also  as 
usual,  vindicated  himself  from  any  wish  to  be 
stingy,  the  money  he  was  receiving  from  Sir 


206 


DANIEL  DERONDA, 


Hugo  on  account  of  Diplow  encouraging  his  dis- 
position to  be  lavish.  Lydia,  feeding  on  the 
probabilities  in  her  favor,  devoured  her  helpless 
wrath  along  with  that  pleasanter  nourishment ; 
but  she  could  not  let  her  discretion  go  entirely 
without  the  reward  of  making  a  Medusa-appari- 
tion before  Gwendolen,  vindictiveness  and  jeal- 
ousy finding  relief  in  an  outlet  of  venom,  though 
it  were  as  futile  as  that  of  a  viper  already  flung 
to  the  other  side  of  the  hedge.  Hence  each  day, 
after  finding  out  from  Lush  the  likely  time  for 
Gwendolen  to  be  riding,  she  had  watched  at  that 
post,  daring  Grandcourt  so  far.  Why  should  she 
not  take  little  Henleigh  into  the  Park  ? 

The  Medusa  -  apparition  was  made  effective 
bevond  Lydia's  conception  by  the  shock  it  gave 
Gwendolen  actually  to  see  Grandcourt  ignoring 
this  woman  who  had  once  been  the  nearest  in  the 
world  to  him,  along  with  the  children  she  had 
borne  him.  And  all  the  while  the  dark  shadow 
thus  cast  on  the  lot  of  a  woman  destitute  of  ac- 
knowledged social  dignity  spread  itself  over  her 
visions  of  a  future  that  might  be  her  own,  and 
made  part  of  her  dread  on  her  own  behalf.  She 
shrank  all  the  more  from  any  lonely  action. 
What  possible  release  could  there  be  for  her  from 
this  hated  vantage-ground,  which  yet  she  dared  not 
quit,  any  more  than  if  fire  had  been  raining  out- 
side it  ?  What  release,  but  death  ?  Not  her  own 
death.  Gwendolen  was  not  a  woman  who  could 
easily  think  of  her  own  death  as  a  near  reality, 
or  front  for  herself  the  dark  entrance  on  the  un- 
tried and  invisible.  It  seemed  more  possible  that 
Grandcourt  should  die — and  yet  not  likely.  The 
power  of  tyranny  in  him  seemed  a  power  of  living 
in  the  presence  of  any  wish  that  he  should  die. 
The  thought  that  his  death  was  the  only  possible 
deliverance  for  her  was  one  with  the  thought  that 
deliverance  would  never  come — the  double  deliv- 
erance from  the  injury  with  which  other  beings 
might  reproach  her  and  from  the  yoke  she  had 
brought  on  her  own  neck.  No !  she  foresaw  him 
always  living,  and  her  own  life  dominated  by  him ; 
the  "  always"  of  her  young  experience  not  stretch- 
ing beyond  the  few  immediate  years  that  seemed 
immeasurably  long  with  her  passionate  weariness. 
The  thought  of  his  dying  would  not  subsist :  it 
turned  as  with  a  dream-change  into  the  terror 
that  she  should  die  with  his  throttling  fingers  on 
her  neck  avenging  that  thought.  Fantasies  moved 
within  her  like  ghosts,  making  no  break  in  her 
more  acknowledged  consciousness  and  finding  no 
obstruction  in  it :  dark  rays  doing  their  work  in- 
visibly in  the  broad  light. 

Only  an  evening  or  two  after  that  encounter  in 
the  Park  there  was  a  grand  concert  at  Klesmer's, 
who  was  living  rather  magnificently  now  in  one 
of  the  large  houses  in  Grosvenor  Place,  a  patron 
and  prince  among  musical  professors.  Gwendo- 
len had  looked  forward  to  this  occasion  as  one  on 
which  she  was  sure  to  meet  Deronda,  and  she  had 
been  meditating  how  to  put  a  question  to  him 
which,  without  containing  a  word  that  she  would 
feel  a  dislike  to  utter,  would  yet  be  explicit  enough 
for  him  to  understand  it.  The  struggle  of  opposite 
feelings  would  not  let  her  abide  by  her  instinct 
that  the  very  idea  of  Deronda's  relation  to  her 
was  a  discouragement  to  any  desperate  step  to- 
ward freedom.  The  next  wave  of  emotion  was  a 
longing  for  some  word  of  his  to  enforce  a  resolve. 
The  fact  that  her  opportunities  of  conversation 
with  him  had  always  to  be  snatched  in  the  doubt- 


ful privacy  of  large  parties  caused  her  to  live 
through  them  many  times  beforehand,  imagining 
how  they  would  take  place  and  what  she  would 
say.  The  irritation  was  proportionate  when  no 
opportunity  came ;  and  this  evening  at  Klesmer's 
she  included  Deronda  in  her  anger,  because  he 
looked  as  calm  as  possible  at  a  distance  from 
her,  while  she  was  in  danger  of  betraying  her 
impatience  to  every  one  who  spoke  to  her.  She 
found  her  only  safety  in  a  chill  haughtiness  which 
made  Mr.  Vandernoodt  remark  that  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  was  becoming  a  perfect  match  for  her  hus- 
band. When  at  last  the  chances  of  the  evening 
brought  Deronda  near  her,  Sir  Hugo  and  Mrs. 
Raymond  were  close  by  and  could  hear  every 
word  she  said.  No  matter:  her  husband  was 
not  near,  and  her  irritation  passed  without  check 
into  a  fit  of  daring  which  restored  the  security 
of  her  self-possession.  Deronda  was  there  at 
last,  and  she  would  compel  him  to  do  what  she 
pleased.  Already  and  without  effort  rather  queen- 
ly in  her  air  as  she  stood  in  her  white  lace  and 
green  leaves,  she  threw  a  royal  permissiveness 
into  her  way  of  saying,  "  I  wish  you  would  come 
and  see  me  to-morrow  between  live  and  six,  Mr. 
Deronda." 

There  could  be  but  one  answer  at  that  mo- 
ment :  "  Certainly,"  with  a  tone  of  obedience. 

Afterward  it  occurred  to  Deronda  that  he 
would  write  a  note  to  excuse  himself.  He  had 
always  avoided  making  a  call  at  Grandcourt's. 
But  he  could  not  persuade  himself  to  any  step 
that  might  hurt  her,  and  whether  his  excuse 
were  taken  for  indifference  or  for  the  affectation 
of  indifference  it  would  be  equally  wounding. 
He  kept  his  promise.  Gwendolen  had  declined 
to  ride  out  on  the  plea  of  not  feeling  well 
enough,  having  left  her  refusal  to  the  last  mo- 
ment when  the  horses  were  soon  to  be  at  the 
door — not  without  alarm  lest  her  husband  should 
say  that  he  too  would  stay  at  home.  Become 
almost  superstitious  about  his  power  of  suspi- 
cious divination,  she  had  a  glancing  forethought 
of  what  she  would  do  in  that  case,  namely,  have 
herself  denied  as  not  well.  But  Grandcourt  ac- 
cepted her  excuse  without  remark,  and  rode  off. 

Nevertheless,  when  Gwendolen  found  herself 
alone,  and  had  sent  down  the  order  that  only  Mr. 
Deronda  was  to  be  admitted,  she  began  to  be 
alarmed  at  what  she  had  done,  and  to  feel  a  grow- 
ing agitation  in  the  thought  that  he  would  soon 
appear,  and  she  should  soon  be  obliged  to  speak : 
not  of  trivialities,  as  if  she  had  had  no  serious 
motive  in  asking  him  to  come ;  and  yet  what  she 
had  been  for  hours  determining  to  say  began  to 
seem  impossible.  For  the  first  time,  the  impulse 
of  appeal  to  him  was  being  checked  by  timidity ; 
and  now  that  it  was  too  late  she  was  shaken  by 
the  possibility  that  he  might  think  her  invitation 
unbecoming.  If  so,  she  would  have  sunk  in  his 
esteem.  But  immediately  she  resisted  this  intol- 
erable fear  as  an  infection  from  her  husband's 
way  of  thinking.  That  he  would  say  she  was 
making  a  fool  of  herself  was  rather  a  reason  why 
such  a  judgment  would  be  remote  from  Deronda's 
mind.  But  that  she  could  not  rid  herself  from 
this  sudden  invasion  of  womanly  reticence  was 
manifest  in  a  kind  of  action  which  had  never 
occurred  to  her  before.  In  her  struggle  between 
agitation  and  the  effort  to  suppress  it,  she  was 
walking  up  and  down  the  length  of  two  drawing- 
rooms,  where  at  one  end  a  long  mirror  reflected 


BOOK  VI.— REVELATIONS. 


207 


her  in  her  black  dress,  chosen  in  the  early  morn- 
ing with  a  half-admitted  reference  to  this  hour. 
But  above  this  black  dress  her  head  on  its  white 
pillar  of  a  neck  showed  to  advantage.  Some  con- 
sciousness of  this  made  her  turn  hastily  and  hur- 
ry to  the  boudoir,  where  again  there  was  glass, 
but  also,  tossed  over  a  chair,  a  large  piece  of 
black  lace,  which  she  snatched  and  tied  over  her 
crown  of  hair  so  as  completely  to  conceal  her 
neck,  and  leave  only  her  face  looking  out  from 
the  black  frame.  In  this  manifest  contempt  of 
appearance,  she  thought  it  possible  to  be  freer 
from  nervousness,  but  the  black  lace  did  not  take 
away  the  uneasiness  from  her  eyes  and  lips. 

She  was  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room 
when  Deronda  was  announced,  and  as  he  ap- 
proached her  she  perceived  that  he  too  for  some 
reason  was  not  his  usual  self.  She  could  not 
have  denned  the  change  except  by  saying  that  he 
looked  less  happy  than  usual,  and  appeared  to  be 
under  some  effort  in  speaking  to  her.  And  yet 
the  speaking  was  the  slightest  possible.  They 
both  said,  "  How  do  you  do  ?"  quite  curtly ;  and 
Gwendolen,  instead  of  sitting  down,  moved  to  a 
little  distance,  resting  her  arms  slightly  on  the 
tall  back  of  a  chair,  while  Deronda  stood  where 
he  was,  holding  his  hat  in  one  hand  and  his  coat 
collar  with  the  other — both  feeling  it  difficult  to 
say  any  thing  more,  though  the  preoccupation  in 
his  mind  could  hardly  have  been  more  remote 
than  it  was  from  Gwendolen's  conception.  She 
naturally  saw  in  his  embarrassment  some  reflec- 
tion of  her  own.  Forced  to  speak,  she  found  all 
her  training  in  concealment  and  self-command  of 
no  use  to  her,  and  began  with  timid  awkwardness : 

"  You  will  wonder  why  I  begged  you  to  come. 
I  wanted  to  ask  you  something.  You  said  I  was 
ignorant.  That  is  true.  And  what  can  I  do  but 
ask  you  ?" 

And  at  this  moment  she  was  feeling  it  utterly 
impossible  to  put  the  questions  she  had  intended. 
Something  new  in  her  nervous  manner  roused 
Deronda's  anxiety  lest  there  might  be  a  new 
crisis.  He  said,  with  the  sadness  of  affection  in 
his  voice, 

"  My  only  regret  is,  that  I  can  be  of  so  little 
use  to  you."  The  words  and  the  tone  touched  a 
new  spring  in  her,  and  she  went  on  with  more 
sense  of  freedom,  and  yet  still  not  saying  any 
thing  she  had  designed  to  say,  and  beginning  to 
hurry,  that  she  might  somehow  arrive  at  the 
right  words : 

"  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  I  have  always  been 
thinking  of  your  advice,  but  is  it  any  use  ? — I 
can't  make  myself  different,  because  things  about 
me  raise  bad  feelings — and  I  must  go  on — I  can 
alter  nothing — it  is  no  use." 

She  paused  an  instant,  with  the  consciousness 
that  she  was  not  finding  the  right  words,  but  be- 
gan again  as  hurriedly,  "  But  if  I  go  on,  I  shall 
get  worse.  I  want  not  to  get  worse.  I  should 
like  to  be  what  you  wish.  There  are  people  who 
are  good  and  enjoy  great  things — I  know  there 
are.  I  am  a  contemptible  creature.  I  feel  as  if 
I  should  get  wicked  with  hating  people.  I  have 
tried  to  think  that  I  would  go  away  from  every 
body.  But  I  can't.  There  are  so  many  things 
to  hinder  me.  You  think,  perhaps,  that  I  don't 
mind.  But  I  do  mind.  I  am  afraid  of  every 
thing.  I  am  afraid  of  getting  wicked.  Tell  me 
what  I  can  do." 

She  had  forgotten  every  thing  but  that  image  of 


her  helpless  misery  which  she  was  trying  to  make 
present  to  Deronda  in  broken  allusive  speech — 
wishing  to  convey  but  not  express  all  her  need. 
Her  eyes  were  tearless,  and  had  a  look  of  smart- 
ing in  their  dilated  brilliancy ;  there  was  a  sub- 
dued sob  in  her  voice  which  was  more  and  more 
veiled,  till  it  was  hardly  above  a  whisper.  She 
was  hurting  herself  with  the  jewels  that  glittered 
on  her  tightly  clasped  fingers  pressed  against  her 
heart. 

The  feeling  Deronda  endured  in  these  moments 
he  afterward  called  horrible.  Words  seemed  to 
have  no  more  rescue  in  them  than  if  he  had  been 
beholding  a  vessel  in  peril  of  wreck — the  poor 
ship  with  its  many-lived  anguish  beaten  by  the 
inescapable  storm.  How  could  he  grasp  the  long- 
growing  process  of  this  young  creature's  wretched- 
ness ? — how  arrest  and  change  it  with  a  sentence  ? 
He  was  afraid  of  his  own  voice.  The  words  that 
rushed  into  his  mind  seemed  in  their  feebleness 
nothing  better  than  despair  made  audible,  or  than 
that  insensibility  to  another's  hardship  which  ap- 
plies precept  to  soothe  pain.  He  felt  himself 
holding  a  crowd  of  words  imprisoned  within  his 
lips,  as  if  the  letting  them  escape  would  be  a  vio- 
lation of  awe  before  the  mysteries  of  our  human 
lot.  The  thought  that  urged  itself  foremost  was, 
"Confess  every  thing  to  your  husband;  leave 
nothing  concealed :"  the  words  carried  in  his 
mind  a  vision  of  reasons  which  would  have  need- 
ed much  fuller  expression  for  Gwendolen  to  ap- 
prehend them ;  but  before  he  had  begun  to  utter 
those  brief  sentences,  the  door  opened  and  the 
husband  entered. 

Grandcourt  had  deliberately  gone  out  and  turn- 
ed back  to  satisfy  a  suspicion.  What  he  saw 
was  Gwendolen's  face  of  anguish  framed  black 
like  a  nun's,  and  Deronda  standing  three  yards 
from  her  with  a  look  of  sorrow  such  as  he  might 
have  bent  on  the  last  struggle  of  life  in  a  beloved 
object.  Without  any  show  of  surprise,  Grand- 
court  nodded  to  Deronda,  gave  a  second  look  at 
Gwendolen,  passed  on,  and  seated  himself  easily 
at  a  little  distance,  crossing  his  legs,  taking  out 
his  handkerchief  and  trifling  with  it  elegantly. 

Gwendolen  had  shrunk  and  changed  her  atti- 
tude on  seeing  him,  but  she  did  not  turn  or  move 
from  her  place.  It  was  not  a  moment  in  which 
she  could  feign  any  thing,  or  manifest  any  strong 
revulsion  of  feeling :  the  passionate  movement  of 
her  last  speech  was  still  too  strong  within  her. 
What  she  felt  besides  was  a  dull  despairing  sense 
that  her  interview  with  Deronda  was  at  an  end : 
a  curtain  had  fallen.  But  he,  naturally,  was 
urged  into  self-possession  and  effort  by  suscepti- 
bility to  what  might  follow  for  her  from  being 
seen  by  her  husband  in  this  betrayal  of  agitation ; 
and  feeling  that  any  pretense  of  ease  in  prolong- 
ing his  visit  would  only  exaggerate  Grandcourt's 
possible  conjectures  of  duplicity,  he  merely  said, 

"  I  will  not  stay  longer  now.     Good-by." 

He  put  out  his  hand,  and  she  let  him  press  her 
poor  little  chill  fingers ;  but  she  said  no  good-by. 

When  he  had  left  the  room,  Gwendolen  threw 
herself  into  a  seat,  with  an  expectation  as  dull  as 
her  despair — the  expectation  that  she  was  going 
to  be  punished.  But  Grandcourt  took  no  notice ; 
he  was  satisfied  to  have  let  her  know  that  she 
had  not  deceived  him,  and  to  keep  a  silence  which 
was  formidable  with  omniscience.  He  went  out 
that  evening,  and  her  plea  of  feeling  ill  was  ac- 
cepted without  even  a  sneer. 


208 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


The  next  morning  at  breakfast  he  said,  "  I  am 
going  yachting  to  the  Mediterranean." 

"  When  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  with  a  leap  of  heart 
which  had  hope  in  it. 

"  The  day  after  to-morrow.  The  yacht  is  at 
Marseilles.  Lush  is  gone  to  get  every  thing 
ready." 

"  Shall  I  have  mamma  to  stay  with  me,  then  ?" 
said  Gwendolen,  the  new  sudden  possibility  of 
peace  and  affection  filling  her  mind  like  a  burst 
of  morning  light. 

"  No ;  you  will  go  with  me." 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

Ever  in  his  soul 

That  larger  justice  which  makes  gratitude 
Triumphed  above  resentment.    "Pis  the  mark 
Of  regal  natures,  with  the  wider  life, 
And  fuller  capability  of  joy : 
Not  wits  exultant  in  the  strongest  lens 
To  show  you  goodness  vanished  into  pulp 
Never  worth  "thank  you" — they're  the  devil's  friars, 
Vowed  to  be  poor  as  he  in  love  and  trust, 
Yet  must  go  begging  of  a  world  that  keeps 
Some  human  property. 

DERONDA,  in  parting  from  Gwendolen,  had  ab- 
stained from  saying,  "  I  shall  not  see  you  again 
for  a  long  while :  I  am  going  away,"  lest  Grand- 
court  should  understand  him  to  imply  that  the 
fact  was  of  importance  to  her. 

He  was  actually  going  away  under  circumstances 
so  momentous  to  himself  that  when  he  set  out  to 
fulfill  his  promise  of  calling  on  her,  he  was  already 
under  the  shadow  of  a  solemn  emotion  which  re- 
vived the  deepest  experience  of  his  life. 

Sir  Hugo  had  sent  for  him  to  his  chambers, 
with  the  note,  "  Come  immediately.  Something 
has  happened :"  a  preparation  that  caused  him 
some  relief  when,  on  entering  the  Baronet's 
study,  he  was  received  with  grave  affection  in- 
stead of  the  distress  which  he  nad  apprehended. 

"  It  is  nothing  to  grieve  you,  Sir  ?"  said  Deron- 
da,  in  a  tone  rather  of  restored  confidence  than 
question,  as  he  took  the  hand  held  out  to  him. 
There  was  an  unusual  meaning  in  Sir  Hugo's 
look,  and  a  subdued  emotion  in  his  voice,  as  he 
said, 

"No,  Dan,  no.  Sit  down.  I  have  something 
to  say." 

Deronda  obeyed,  not  without  presentiment.  It 
was  extremely  rare  for  Sir  Hugo  to  show  so 
much  serious  feeling. 

"Not  to  grieve  me,  my  boy,  no.  At  least,  if 
there  is  nothing  in  it  that  will  grieve  you  too 
much.  But  I  hardly  expected  that  this — just  this 
— would  ever  happen.  There  have  been  reasons 
why  I  have  never  prepared  you  for  it.  There 
have  been  reasons  why  I  have  never  told  you 
any  thing  about  your  parentage.  But  I  have 
striven  in  every  way  not  to  make  that  an  injury 
to  you." 


Sir  Hugo  paused,  but  Deronda  could  not  speak. 
He  could  not  say,  "  I  have  never  felt  it  an  in- 
jury." Even  if  that  had  been  true,  he  could  not 
have  trusted  his  voice  to  say  any  thing  Far 
more  than  any  one  but  himself  could  know  of 
was  hanging  on  this  moment  when  the  secrecy 
was  to  be  broken.  Sir  Hugo  had  never  seen 
the  grand  face  he  delighted  in  BO  pale — the  lips 
pressed  together  with  such  a  look  of  pain.  He 
went  on  with  a  more  anxious  tenderness,  as  if  he 
had  a  new  fear  of  wounding. 

"  I  have  acted  in  obedience  to  your  mother's 
wishes.  The  secrecy  was  her  wish.  But  now 
she  desires  to  remove  it.  She  desires  to  see  you. 
I  will  put  this  letter  into  your  hands,  which  you 
can  look  at  by-and-by.  It  will  merely  tell  you 
what  she  wishes  you  to  do,  and  where  you  will 
find  her." 

Sir  Hugo  held  out  a  letter  written  on  foreign 
paper,  which  Deronda  thrust  into  his  breast  pock- 
et, with  a  sense  of  relief  that  he  was  not  called 
on  to  read  any  thing  immediately.  The  emotion 
in  Daniel's  face  had  gained  on  the  Baronet,  and 
was  visibly  shaking  his  composure.  Sir  Hugo 
found  it  difficult  to  say  more.  And  Deronda's 
whole  soul  was  possessed  by  a  question  which 
was  the  hardest  in  the  world  to  utter.  Yet  he 
could  not  bear  to  delay  it.  This  was  a  sacra- 
mental moment.  If  he  let  it  pass,  he  could  not 
recover  the  influences  under  which  it  was  possi- 
ble to  utter  the  words  and  meet  the  answer.  For 
some  moments  his  eyes  were  cast  down,  and  it 
seemed  to  both  as  if  thoughts  were  in  the  air  be- 
tween them.  But  at  last  Deronda  looked  at  Sir 
Hugo,  and  said,  with  a  tremulous  reverence  in  his 
voice—dreading  to  convey  indirectly  the  reproach 
that  affection  had  for  years  been  stifling — 

"  Is  my  father  also  living  ?" 

The  answer  came  immediately  in  a  low  em- 
phatic tone : 

"  No." 

In  the  mingled  emotions  which  followed  that 
answer  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  joy  from 
pain. 

Some  new  light  had  fallen  on  the  past  for  Sir 
Hugo  too  in  this  interview.  After  a  silence  in 
which  Deronda  felt  like  one  whose  creed  is  gone 
before  he  has  religiously  embraced  another,  the 
Baronet  said,  in  a  tone  of  confession, 

"  Perhaps  I  was  wrong,  Dan,  to  undertake  what 
I  did.  And  perhaps  I  liked  it  a  little  too  well — 
having  you  all  to  myself.  But  if  you  have  had 
any  pain  which  I  might  have  helped,  I  ask  you  to 
forgive  me." 

"  The  forgiveness  has  long  been  there,"  said 
Deronda.  "  The  chief  pain  has  always  been  on 
account  of  some  one  else — whom  I  never  knew — 
whom  I  am  now  to  know.  It  has  not  hindered 
me  from  feeling  an  affection  for  you  which  has 
made  a  large  part  of  all  the  life  I  remember." 

It  seemed  one  impulse  that  made  the  two  men 
clasp  each  other's  hand  for  a  moment. 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND  THE  SOX. 


BOOK   VIL—THE  MOTHER  AND  THE  SON. 


CHAPTER  L. 

"  If  some  mortal,  born  too  soon, 
Were  laid  away  in  some  great  trance — the  ages 
Coming  and  going  all  the  while— till  dawned 
His  true  time's  advent ;  and  could  then  record 
The  words  they  spoke  who  kept  watch  by  his  bed, 
Then  I  might  tell  more  of  the  breath  so  light 
Upon  my  eyelids,  and  the  fingers  warm 
Among  my  hair.    Youth  is  confused ;  yet  never 
So  dull  was  I  but,  when  that  spirit  passed, 
I  turned  to  him,  scarce  consciously,  as  turns 
A  water-snake  when  fairies  cross  his  sleep." 

— BBOWNING  :  Paracelsus. 

THIS  was  the  letter  which  Sir  Hugo  put  into 
Deronda's  hands : 

"  TO   MT    SON,  DANIEL    DERONDA. 

"My  good  friend  and  yours,  Sir  Hugo  Mallin- 
ger,  will  have  told  you  that  I  wish  to  see  you.  My 
health  is  shaken,  and  I  desire  there  should  be  no 
time  lost  before  I  deliver  to  you  what  I  have  long 
withheld.  Let  nothing  hinder  you  from  being 
at  the  Albergo  deW  Italia  in  Genoa  by  the  four- 
teenth of  this  month.  Wait  for  me  there.  I  am 
uncertain  when  I  shall  be  able  to  make  the  jour- 
ney from  Spezia,  where  I  shall  be  staying.  That 
will  depend  on  several  things.  Wait  for  me — 
the  Princess  Halm-Eberstein.  Bring  with  you 
the  diamond  ring  that  Sir  Hugo  gave  you.  I  shall 
like  to  see  it  again.  Your  unknown  mother, 
"  LEONORA  HALM-EBERSTEIN." 

This  letter  with  its  colorless  wording  gave  De- 
ronda  no  clew  to  what  was  in  reserve  for  him  ; 
but  he  could  not  do  otherwise  than  accept  Sir 
Hugo's  reticence,  which  seemed  to  imply  some 
pledge  not  to  anticipate  the  mother's  disclosures  ; 
and  the  discovery  that  his  life-long  conjectures  had 
l>een  mistaken  checked  further  surmise.  Deronda 
could  not  hinder  his  imagination  from  taking  a 
quick  flight  over  what  seemed  possibilities,  but  he 
refused  to  contemplate  any  one  of  them  as  more 
likely  than  another,  lest  he  should  be  nursing  it 
into  a  dominant  desire  or  repugnance,  instead  of 
simply  preparing  himself  with  resolve  to  meet  the 
fact  bravely,  whatever  it  might  turn  out  to  be. 

In  this  state  of  mind  he  could  not  have  com- 
municated to  any  one  the  reason  for  the  absence 
which  in  some  quarters  he  was  obliged  to  men- 
tion beforehand,  least  of  all  to  Mordecai,  whom  it 
would  affect  as  powerfully  as  it  did  himself,  only 
in  rather  a  different  way.  If  he  were  to  say,  "  I 
am  going  to  learn  the  truth  about  my  birth," 
Mordecai's  hope  would  gather  what  might  prove  a 
painful,  dangerous  excitement.  To  exclude  sup- 
positions, he  spoke  of  his  journey  as  being  under- 
taken by  Sir  Hugo's  wish,  and  threw  as  much 
indifference  as  he  could  into  his  manner  of  an- 
nouncing it,  saying  he  was  uncertain  of  its  dura- 
tion, but  it  would  perhaps  be  very  short. 

"  I  will  ask  to  have  the  child  Jacob  to  stay  with 
me,"  said  Mordecai,  comforting  himself  in  this 
way,  after  the  first  mournful  glances. 

"  I  will  drive  round  and  ask  Mrs.  Cohen  to  let 
him  come,"  said  Mirah. 

"  The  grandmother  will  deny  you  nothing,"  said 
Deronda.  "  I'm  glad  you  were  a  little  wrong  as 
well  as  I,"  he  added,  smiling  at  Mordecai.  "  You 
thought  that  old  Mrs.  Cohen  would  not  bear  to 
see  Mivah." 

0 


"I  undervalued  her  heart,"  said  Mordecai. 
"  She  is  capable  of  rejoicing  that  another's  plant 
blooms  though  her  own  be  withered." 

"  Oh,  they  are  dear  good  people.  I  -feel  as  if 
we  all  belonged  to  each  other,"  said  Mirah,  with 
a  tinge  of  merriment  in  her  smile. 

"What  should  you  have  felt  if  that  Ezra  had 
been  your  brother  ?"  said  Deronda,  mischievously 
— a  little  provoked  that  she  had  taken  kindly  at 
once  to  people  who  had  caused  him  so  much  pro- 
spective annoyance  on  her  account. 

Mirah  looked  at  him  with  a  slight  surprise  for 
a  moment,  and  then  said, "  He  is  not  a  bad  man : 
I  think  he  would  never  forsake  any  one."  But 
when  she  had  uttered  the  words  she  blushed 
deeply,  and  glancing  timidly  at  Mordecai,  turned 
away  to  some  occupation.  Her  father  was  in  her 
mind,  and  this  was  a  subject  on  which  she  and  her 
brother  had  a  painful  mutual  consciousness.  "  If 
he  should  come  and  find  us !"  was  a  thought  which 
to  Mirah  sometimes  made  the  street  daylight  as 
shadowy  as  a  haunted  forest  where  each  turn 
screened  for  her  an  imaginary  apparition. 

Deronda  felt  what  was  her  involuntary  allusion, 
and  understood  the  blush.  How  could  he  be  slow 
to  understand  feelings  which  now  seemed  nearer 
than  ever  to  his  own  ?  For  the  words  of  his 
mother's  letter  implied  that  his  filial  relation  was 
not  to  be  freed  from  painful  conditions ;  indeed, 
singularly  enough,  that  letter  which  had  brought 
his  mother  nearer  as  a  living  reality  had  thrown 
her  into  more  remoteness  for  his  affections.  The 
tender  yearning  after  a  being  whose  life  might 
have  been  the  worse  for  not  having  his  care  and 
love,  the  image  of  a  mother  who  had  not  had  all 
her  dues  whether  of  reverence  or  compassion,  had 
long  been  secretly  present  with  him  in  his  obser- 
vation of  all  the  women  he  had  come  near.  But 
it  seemed  now  that  this  picturing  of  his  mother 
might  fit  the  facts  no  better  than  his  former  con- 
ceptions, about  Sir  Hugo.  He  wondered  to  find 
that  when  this  mother's  very  handwriting  had 
come  to  him  with  words  holding  her  actual  feel- 
ing, his  affections  had  suddenly  shrunk  into  a 
state  of  comparative  neutrality  toward  her.  A 
veiled  figure  with  enigmatic  speech  had  thrust 
away  that  image  which,  in  spite  of  uncertainty, 
his  clinging  thought  had  gradually  modeled  and 
made  the  possessor  of  his  tenderness  and  duteous 
longing.  When  he  set  off  to  Genoa,  the  inter- 
est really  uppermost  in  his  mind  had  hardly  so 
much  relation  to  his  mother  as  to  Mordecai  and 
Mirah. 

"  God  bless  you,  Dan !"  Sir  Hugo  had  said,  when 
they  shook  hands.  "  Whatever  else  changes  for 
you,  it  can't  change  my  being  the  oldest  friend 
you  have  known,  and  the  one  who  has  all  along 
felt  the  most  for  you.  I  couldn't  have  loved  you 
better  if  you'd  been  my  own — only  I  should  have 
been  better  pleased  with  thinking  of  you  always 
as  the  future  master  of  the  Abbey  instead  of  my 
fine  nephew ;  and  then  you  would  have  seen  it 
necessary  for  you  to  take  a  political  line.  How- 
ever— things  must  be  as  they  may."  It  was  a  de- 
fensive measure  of  the  Baronet's  to  mingle  pur- 
poseless remarks  with  the  expression  of  serious 
feeling. 

When  Deronda  arrived  at  the  Italia  in  Genoa, 


210 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


no  Princess  Halm-Eberstein  was  there;  but  on 
the  second  day  there  was  a  letter  for  him,  saying 
that  her  arrival  might  happen  within  a  week,  or 
might  be  deferred  a  fortnight  and  more  :  she  was 
under  circumstances  which  made  it  impossible 
for  her  to  fix  her  journey  more  precisely,  and  she 
entreated  him  to  wait  as  patiently  as  he  could. 

With  this  indefinite  prospect  of  suspense  on 
matters  of  supreme  moment  to  him,  Deronda  set 
about.the  difficult  task  of  seeking  amusement  on 
philosophic  grounds,  as  a  means  of  tranquilizing 
excitement  and  giving  patience  a  lift  over  a  weary 
road.  His  former  visit  to  the  superb  city  had 
been  only  cursory,  and  left  him  much  to  learn 
beyond  the  prescribed  round  of  sight-seeing,  by 
spending  the  cooler  hours  in  observant  wander- 
ing about  the  streets,  the  quay,  and  the  environs ; 
and  he  often  took  a  boat  that  he  might  enjoy  the 
magnificent  view  of  the  city  and  harbor  from  the 
sea.  All  sights,  all  subjects,  even  the  expected 
meeting  with  his  mother,  found  a  central  union 
in  Mordecai  and  Mi  rah  and  the  ideas  immediate- 
ly associated  with  them  ;  and  among  the  thoughts 
that  most  filled  his  mind  while  his  boat  was  push- 
ing about  within  view  of  the  grand  harbor  was 
that  of  the  multitudinous  Spanish  Jews  centuries 
ago  driven  destitute  from  their  Spanish  homes, 
suffered  to  land  from  the  crowded  ships  only  for 
a  brief  rest  on  this  grand  quay  of  Genoa,  over- 
spreading it  with  a  pall  of  famine  and  plague — 
dying  mothers  with  dying  children  at  their  breasts 
— fathers  and  sons  agaze  at  each  other's  haggard- 
ness,  like  groups  from  a  hundred  Hunger-towers 
turned  out  beneath  the  mid-day  sun.  Inevitably, 
dreamy  constructions  of  a  possible  ancestry  for 
himself  would  weave  themselves  with  historic 
memories  which  had  begun  to  have  a  new  inter- 
est for  him  on  his  discovery  of  Mirah,  and  now, 
under  the  influence  of  Mordecai,  had  become  irre- 
sistibly dominant.  He  would  have  sealed  his 
mind  against  such  constructions  if  it  had  been 
possible,  and  he  had  never  yet  fully  admitted  to 
himself  that  he  wished  the  facts  to  verify  Morde- 
cai's  conviction :  he  inwardly  repeated  that  he 
had  no  choice  in  the  matter,  and  that  wishing  was 
folly — nay,  on  the  question  of  parentage,  wishing 
seemed  part  of  that  meanness  which  disowns  kin- 
ship :  it  was  a  disowning  by  anticipation.  What 
he  had  to  do  was  simply  to  accept  the  fact ;  and 
he  had  really  no  strong  presumption  to  go  upon, 
now  that  he  was  assured  of  his  mistake  about  Sir 
Hugo.  There  had  been  a  resolved  concealment 
which  made  all  inference  untrustworthy,  and  the 
very  name  he  bore  might  be  a  false  one.  If  Mor- 
decai were  wrong — if  he,  the  so-called  Daniel  De- 
ronda, were  held  by  ties  entirely  aloof  from  any 
such  course  as  his  friend's  pathetic  hope  had 
marked  out — he  would  not  Bay  "  I  wish,"  but  he 
could  not  help  feeling  on  which  side  the  sacri- 
fice lay. 

Across  these  two  importunate  thoughts,  which 
he  resisted  as  much  as  one  can  resist  any  thing 
in  that  unstrung  condition  which  belongs  to  sus- 
pense; there  came  continually  an  anxiety  which 
he  made  no  effort  to  banish — dwelling  on  it  rather 
with  a  mournfulness  which  often  seems  to  us  the 
best  atonement  we  can  make  to  one  whose  need 
we  have  been  unable  to  meet.  The  anxiety  was 
for  Gwendolen.  In  the  wonderful  mixtures  of 
our  nature  there  is  a  feeling  distinct  from  that 
exclusive  passionate  love  of  which  some  men  and 
women  (by  no  means  all)  are  capable,  which  yet 


is  not  the  same  with  friendship,  nor  with  a  mere- 
ly benevolent  regard,  whether  admiring  or  com- 
passionate :  a  man,  say — for  it  is  a  man  who  is 
here  concerned — hardly  represents  to  himself  this 
shade  of  feeling  toward  a  woman  more  nearly 
than  in  the  words,  "  I  should  have  loved  her 
if — "  the  "  if"  covering  some  prior  growth  in  the 
inclinations,  or  else  some  circumstances  which 
have  made  an  inward  prohibitory  law  as  a  stay 
against  the  emotions  ready  to  quiver  out  of  bal- 
ance. The  "if"  in  Deronda's  case  carried  rea- 
sons of  both  kinds ;  yet  he  had  never  through- 
out his  relations  with  Gwendolen  been  free  from 
the  nervous  consciousness  that  there  was  some- 
thing to  guard  against  not  only  on  her  account 
but  on  his  own — some  precipitancy  in  the  mani- 
festation of  impulsive  feeling — some  ruinous  in- 
road of  what  is  but  momentary  on  the  permanent 
chosen  treasure  of  the  heart— some  spoiling  of 
her  trust,  which  wrought  upon  him  now  as  if  it 
had  been  the  retreating  cry  of  a  creature  snatched 
and  carried  out  of  his  reach  by  swift  horsemen 
or  swifter  waves,  while  his  own  strength  was  only 
a  stronger  sense  of  weakness.  How  could  his 
feeling  for  Gwendolen  ever  be  exactly  like  his 
feeling  for  other  women,  even  when  there  was 
one  by  whose  side  he  desired  to  stand  apart  from 
them  ?  Strangely  her  figure  entered  into  the  pic- 
tures of  his  present  and  future;  strangely  (and 
now  it  seemed  sadly)  their  two  lots  had  come  in 
contact,  hers  narrowly  personal,  his  charged  with 
far-reaching  sensibilities,  perhaps  with  durable 
purposes,  which  were  hardly  more  present  to  her 
than  the  reasons  why  men  migrate  are  present  to 
the  birds  that  come  as  usual  for  the  crumbs  and 
find  them  no  more.  Not  that  Deronda  was  too 
ready  to  imagine  himself  of  supreme  importance 
to  a  woman  ;  but  her  words  of  insistence  that  he 
"  must  remain  near  her — must  not  forsake  her" 
— continually  recurred  to  him  with  the  clearness 
and  importunity  of  imagined  sounds,  such  as 
Dante  has  said  pierce  us  like  arrows  whose  points 
carry  the  sharpness  of  pity : 

"  Lamenti  saettaron  me  diversi 
Che  di  pietd  ferrati  avean  gli  strait." 

Day  after  day  passed,  and  the  very  air  of  Italy 
seemed  to  carry  the  consciousness  that  war  had 
been  declared  against  Austria,  and  every  day  was 
a  hurrying  march  of  crowded  Time  toward  the 
world-changing  battle  of  Sadowa.  Meanwhile,  in 
Genoa,  the  noons  were  getting  hotter,  the  con- 
verging outer  roads  getting  deeper  with  white 
dust,  the  oleanders  in  the  tubs  along  the  way-side 
gardens  looking  more  and  more  like  fatigued 
holiday-makers,  and  the  sweet  evening  changing 
her  office — scattering  abroad  those  whom  the  mid- 
day had  sent  under  shelter,  and  sowing  all  paths 
with  happy  social  sounds,  little  tinklings  of  mule 
bells  and  whirrings  of  thrummed  strings,  light 
footsteps  and  voices,  if  not  leisurely,  then  with 
the  hurry  of  pleasure  in  them ;  while  the  encir- 
cling heights,  crowned  with  forts,  skirted  with  fine 
dwellings  and  gardens,  seemed  also  to  come  forth 
and  gaze  in  fullness  of  beauty  after  their  long  si- 
esta, till  all  strong  color  melted  in  the  stream  of 
moonlight  which  made  tho  streets  a  new  specta- 
cle  with  shadows,  both  still  and  moving,  on  ca- 
thedral steps  and  against  the  fa9ades  of  massive 
palaces;  and  then  slowly  with  the  descending 
moon  all  sank  in  deep  night  and  silence,  and 
nothing  shone  but  the  port  lights  of  the  great 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND  THE  SON. 


211 


Lanterna  in  the  blackness  below,  and  the  glim- 
mering stars  in  the  blackness  above.  Deronda, 
in  his  suspense,  watched  this  revolving  of  the 
days  as  he  might  have  watched  a  wonderful  clock 
where  the  striking  of  the  hours  was  made  solemn 
with  antique  figures  advancing  and  retreating  in 
monitory  procession,  while  he  still  kept  his  ear 
open  for  another  kind  of  signal  which  would  have 
its  solemnity  too.  He  was  beginning  to  sicken  of 
occupation,  and  found  himself  contemplating  all 
activity  with  the  aloofness  of  a  prisoner  awaiting 
ransom.  In  his  letters  to  Mordecai  and  Hans  he 
had  avoided  writing  about  himself,  but  he  was  re- 
ally getting  into  that  state  of  mind  to  which  all 
subjects  become  personal ;  and  the  few  books  he 
had  brought  to  make  him  a  refuge  in  study  were 
becoming  unreadable,  because  the  point  of  view 
that  life  would  make  for  him  was  in  that  agi- 
tating moment  of  uncertainty  which  is  close  upon 
decision. 

Many  nights  were  watched  through  by  him  in 
gazing  from  the  open  window  of  his  room  on  the 
double,  faintly  pierced  darkness  of  the  sea  and  the 
heavens :  often  in  struggling  under  the  oppressive 
skepticism  which  represented  his  particular  lot, 
with  all  the  importance  he  was  allowing  Mordecai 
to  give  it,  as  of  no  more  lasting  effect  than  a 
dream — a  set  of  changes  which  made  passion  to 
him,  but  beyond  his  consciousness  were  no  more 
than  an  imperceptible  difference  of  mass  or  shad- 
ow ;  sometimes  with  a  reaction  of  emotive  force 
which  gave  even  to  sustained  disappointment,  even 
to  the  fulfilled  demand  of  sacrifice,  the  nature  of  a 
satisfied  energy,  and  spread  over  his  young  future, 
whatever  it  might  be,  the  attraction  of  devoted 
service ;  sometimes  with  a  sweet  irresistible  hope- 
fulness that  the  very  best  of  human  possibilities 
might  befall  him — the  blending  of  a  complete 
personal  love  in  one  current  with  a  larger  duty ; 
and  sometimes  again  in  a  mood  of  rebellion  (what 
human  creature  escapes  it?)  against  things  in 
general  because  they  are  thus  and  not  otherwise, 
a  mood  in  which  Gwendolen  and  her  equivocal 
fate  moved  as  busy  images  of  what  was  amiss  in 
the  world  along  with  the  concealments  which  he 
had  felt  as  a  hardship  in  his  own  life,  and  which 
were  acting  in  him  now  under  the  form  of  an  af- 
flicting doubtfulness  about  the  mother  who  had 
announced  herself  coldly  and  still  kept  away. 

But  at  last  she  was  come.  One  morning  in  his 
third  week  of  waiting  there  was  a  new  kind  of 
knock  at  the  door.  A  servant  in  chasseur's  livery 
entered  and  delivered  in  French  the  verbal  mes- 
sage that  the  Princess  Halm-Eberstein  had  ar- 
rived, that  she  was  going  to  rest  during  the  day, 
but  would  be  obliged  if  monsieur  would  dine  ear- 
ly, so  as  to  be  at  liberty  at  seven,  when  she 
would  be  able  to  receive  him. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

She  held  the  spindle  as  she  gat, 
Erinna  with  the  thick-coiled  mat 
Of  raven  hair  and  deepest  agate  eyes, 
Gazing  with  a  sad  surprise 
At  surging  visions  of  her  destiny— 
To  spin  the  hyssus  drearily 
In  insect-la'ior,  while  the  throng 
Of  gods  and  men  wrought  deeds  that  poete  wrought 
in  song. 

WHEN  Deronda  presented  himself  at  the  door 
of  his  mother's  apartment  in  the  Italia,  he  felt 
some  revival  of  his  boyhood  with  its  premature 


agitations.  The  two  servants  in  the  antecham- 
ber looked  at  him  markedly,  a  little  surprised 
that  the  doctor  their  lady  had  come  to  consult  was 
this  striking  young  gentleman  whose  appearance 
gave  even  the  severe  lines  of  an  evening  dress 
the  credit  of  adornment.  But  Deronda  could  no- 
tice nothing  until,  the  second  door  being  opened, 
he  found  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  figure  which 
at  the  other  end  of  the  large  room  stood  awaiting 
bis  approach. 

She  was  covered,  except  as  to  her  face  and  part 
of  her  arms,  with  black  lace  hanging  loosely  from 
the  summit  of  her  whitening  hair  to  the  long  train 
stretching  from  her  tall  figure.  Her  arms,  naked 
from  the  elbow,  except  for  some  rich  bracelets, 
were  folded  before  her,  and  the  fine  poise  of  her 
head  made  it  look  handsomer  than  it  really  was. 
«^ut  Deronda  felt  no  interval  of  observation  before 
he  was  close  in  front  of  her,  holding  the  hand 
she  had  put  out  and  then  raising  it  to  his  lips. 
She  still  kept  her  hand  in  his  and  looked  at  him 
examiningly ;  while  his  chief  consciousness  was 
that  her  eyes  were  piercing  and  her  face  so  mo- 
bile that  the  next  moment  she  might  look  like  a 
different  person.  For  even  while  she  was  ex- 
.mining  him  there  was  a  play  of  the  brow  and 
nostril  which  made  a  tacit  language.  Deronda 
dared  no  movement,  not  able  to  conceive  what 
sort  of  manifestation  her  feeling  demanded ;  but 
he  felt  himself  changing  color  like  a  girl,  and  yet 
wondering  at  his  own  lack  of  emotion:  he  had 
lived  through  so  many  ideal  meetings  with  his 
mother,  and  they  had  seemed  more  real  than  this ! 
He  could  not  even  conjecture  in  what  language 
she  would  speak  to  him.  He  imagined  it  would 
not  be  English.  Suddenly  she  let  fall  his  hand, 
and  placed  both  hers  on  his  shoulders,  while  her 
face  gave  out  a  flash  of  admiration  in  which  ev- 
ery worn  line  disappeared  and  seemed  to  leave  a 
restored  youth. 

"  You  are  a  beautiful  creature !"  she  said,  in  a 
low  melodious  voice,  with  syllables  which  had 
what  might  be  called  a  foreign  but  agreeable 
outline.  "I  knew  you  would  be."  Then  she 
kissed  him  on  each  cheek,  and  he  returned  her 
kisses.  But  it  was  something  like  a  greeting 
between  royalties. 

She  paused  a  moment,  while  the  lines  were 
coming  back  into  her  face,  and  then  said,  in  a 
colder  tone,  "  I  am  your  mother.  But  you  can 
have  no  love  for  me." 

"  I  have  thought  of  you  more  than  of  any  oth- 
er being  in  the  world,"  said  Deronda,  his  voice 
trembling  nervously. 

"  I  am  not  like  what  you  thought  I  was,"  said 
the  mother,  decisi\-ely,  withdrawing  her  hands 
from  his  shoulders  and  folding  her  arms  as  be- 
fore, looking  at  him  as  if  she  invited  him  to  ob- 
serve her.  He  had  often  pictured  her  face  in  his 
imagination  as  one  which  had  a  likeness  to  his 
own:  he  saw  some  of  the  likeness  now,  but 
amidst  more  striking  differences.  She  was  a  re- 
markable-looking being.  What  was  it  that  gave 
her  son  a  painful  sense  of  aloofness  ? — Her  worn 
beauty  had  a  strangeness  in  it  as  if  she  were  not 
quite  a  human  mother,  but  a  Melusina,  who  had 
ties  with  some  world  which  is  independent  of  ours. 

"  I  used  to  think  that  you  might  be  suffering," 
said  Deronda,  anxioua  above  all  not  to  wound 
her.  "  I  used  to  wish  that  I  could  be  a  comfort 
to  you." 

"I  am  suffering.     But  with  a  suffering  that 


212 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


you  can't  comfort,"  said  the  Princess,  in  a  harder 
voice  than  before,  moving  to  a  sofa  where  cush- 
ions had  been  carefully  arranged  for  her.  "  Sit 
down."  She  pointed  to  a  seat  near  her ;  and  then 
discerning  some  distress  in  Deronda's  face,  she 
added,  more  gently,  "  I  am  not  suffering  at  this 
moment.  I  am  at  ease  now.  I  am  able  to  talk." 

Deronda  seated  himself  and  waited  for  her  to 
speak  again.  It  seemed  as  if  he  were  in  the 
presence  of  a  mysterious  Fate  rather  than  of  the 
longed-for  mother.  He  was  beginning  to  watch 
her  with  wonder  from  the  spiritual  distance  to 
which  she  had  thrown  him. 

"  No,"  she  began,  "  I  did  not  send  for  you  to 
comfort  me.  I  could  not  know  beforehand — I 
don't  know  now — what  you  will  feel  toward  me. 
I  have  not  the  foolish  notion  that  you  can  love 
me  merely  because  I  am  your  mother,  when 
have  never  seen  or  heard  of  me  all  your  life.  But 
I  thought  I  chose  something  better  for  you  than 
being  with  me.  I  did  not  think  that  I  deprived 
you  of  any  thing  worth  having." 

"  You  can  not  wish  me  to  believe  that  your  af- 
fection would  not  have  been  worth  having,"  said 
Deronda,  finding  that  she  paused  as  if  she  ex- 
pected him  to  make  some  answer. 

"  I  don't  mean  to  speak  ill  of  myself,"  said  the 
Princess,  with  proud  impetuosity,  "  but  I  had  not 
much  affection  to  give  you.  I  did  not  want  affec- 
tion. I  had  been  stifled  with  it.  I  wanted  to  live 
out  the  life  that  was  in  me,  and  not  to  be  ham- 
pered with  other  lives.  You  wonder  what  I  was. 
I  was  no  princess  then."  She  rose  with  a  sudden 
movement,  and  stood  as  she  had  done  before. 
Deronda  immediately  rose  too  :  he  felt  breathless. 

"  No  princess  in  this  tame  life  that  I  live  in 
now.  I  was  a  great  singer,  and  I  acted  as  well  as  I 
sang.  All  the  rest  were  poor  beside  me.  Men  fol- 
lowed me  from  one  country  to  another.  I  was  liv- 
ing a  myriad  lives  in  one.  I  did  not  want  a  child." 

There  was  a  passionate  self-defense  in  her  tone. 
She  had  cast  all  precedent  out  of  her  mind.  Prec- 
edent had  no  excuse  for  her,  and  she  could  only 
seek  a  justification  in  the  intensest  words  she 
could  find  for  her  experience.  She  seemed  to 
fling  out  the  last  words  against  some  possible  re- 
proach in  the  mind  of  her  son,  who  had  to  stand 
and  hear  them — clutching  his  coat  collar  as  if  he 
were  keeping  himself  above  water  by  it,  and  feel- 
ing his  blood  in  the  sort  of  commotion  that  might 
have  been  excited  if  he  had  seen  her  going  through 
some  strange  rite  of  a  religion  which  gave  a  sa- 
credness  to  crime.  What  else  had  she  to  tell 
him  ?  She  went  on  with  the  same  intensity  and 
a  sort  of  pale  illumination  in  her  face : 

"  I  did  not  want  to  marry.  I  was  forced  into 
marrying  your  father — forced,  I  mean,  by  my  fa- 
ther's wishes  and  commands ;  and  besides,  it  was 
my  best  way  of  getting  some  freedom.  I  could 
rule  my  husband,  but  not  my  father.  I  had  a 
right  to  be  free.  I  had  a  right  to  seek  my  free- 
dom from  a  bondage  that  I  hated." 

She  seated  herself  again,  while  there  was  that 
subtle  movement  in  her  eyes  and  closed  lips  which 
is  like  the  suppressed  continuation  of  speech. 
Deronda  continued  standing,  and  after  a  moment 
or  two  she  looked  up  at  him  with  a  less  defiant 
pleading  as  she  said, 

"  And  the  bondage  I  hated  for  myself  I  wanted 
to  keep  you  from.  What  better  could  the  most 
loving  mother  have  done  ?  I  relieved  you  from 
the  bondage  of  having  been  bora  a  Jew." 


"  Then  I  am  a  Jew  ?"  Deronda  burst  out  with 
a  deep-voiced  energy  that  made  his  mother  shrink 
a  little  backward  against  her  cushions.  "  My  fa- 
ther was  a  Jew,  and  you  are  a  Jewess  ?" 

"Yes,  your  father  was  my  cousin,"  said  the 
mother,  watching  him  with  a  change  in  her  look, 
as  if  she  saw  something  that  she  might  have  to 
t>e  afraid  of. 

"  I  am  glad  of  it,"  said  Deronda,  impetuously, 
n  the  veiled  voice  of  passion.  He  could  not  have 
magined  beforehand  how  he  would  come  to  say 
that  which  he  had  never  hitherto  admitted.  He 
could  not  have  dreamed  that  it  would  be  in  im- 
pulsive opposition  to  his  mother.  He  was  shaken 
by  a  mixed  anger,  which  no  reflection  could  come 
soon  enough  to  check,  against  this  mother  who  it 
seemed  had  borne  him  unwillingly,  had  willingly 
yoi||  made  herself  a  stranger  to  him,  and — perhaps — 
But  was  now  making  herself  known  unwillingly.  This 
last  suspicion  seemed  to  flash  some  explanation 
over  her  speech. 

But  the  mother  was  equally  shaken  by  an  anger 
differently  mixed,  and  her  frame  was  less  equal  to 
any  repression.  The  shaking  with  her  was  visibly 
physical,  and  her  eyes  looked  the  larger  for  her 
pallid  excitement  as  she  said,  violently, 

"  Why  do  you  say  you  are  glad  ?  You  are  an 
English  gentleman.  I  secured  you  that." 

You  did  not  know  what  you  secured  me. 
How  could  you  choose  my  birthright  for  me?" 
said  Deronda,  throwing  himself  sideways  into  his 
chair  again,  almost  unconsciously,  and  leaning  his 
arm  over  the  back  while  he  looked  away  from  his 
mother. 

He  was  fired  with  an  intolerance  that  seemed 
foreign  to  him.  But  he  was  now  trying  hard  to 
master  himself  and  keep  silence.  A  horror  had 
swept  in  upon  his  anger  lest  he  should  say  some- 
thing too  hard  in  this  moment  which  made  an 
epoch  never  to  be  recalled.  There  was  a  pause 
before  his  mother  spoke  again,  and  when  she 
spoke  her  voice  had  become  more  firmly  resist- 
ant in  its  finely  varied  tones : 

"  I  chose  for  you  what  I  would  have  chosen 
for  myself.  How  could  I  know  that  you  would 
have  the  spirit  of  my  f  ather  in  you  ?  How  could 
I  know  that  you  would  love  what  I  hated  ? — if 
you  really  love  to  be  a  Jew."  The  last  words 
had  such  bitterness  in  them  that  any  one  over- 
hearing might  have  supposed  some  hatred  had 
arisen  between  the  mother  and  son. 

But  Deronda  had  recovered  his  fuller  self.  He 
was  recalling  his  sensibilities  to  what  life  had 
been  and  actually  was  for  her  whose  best  years 
were  gone,  and  who  with  the  signs  of  suffering  in 
her  frame  was  now  exerting  herself  to  tell  him 
of  a  past  which  was  not  his  alone,  but  also  hers. 
His  habitual  shame  at  the  acceptance  of  events 
as  if  they  were  his  only,  helped  him  even  here. 
As  he  looked  at  his  mother  silently  after  her  last 
words,  his  face  regained  some  of  its  penetrative 
calm ;  yet  it  seemed  to  have  a  strangely  agitating 
influence  over  her:  her  eyes  were  fixed  on  him 
with  a  sort  of  fascination,  but  not  with  any  re- 
pose of  maternal  delight. 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  speak  hastily,"  he  said,  with 
diffident  gravity.  "Why  have  you  resolved  now 
on  disclosing  to  mo  what  you  took  care  to  have 
me  brought  up  in  ignorance  of?  Why — since 
you  seem  angry  that  I  should  be  glad  ?" 

"Oh— the  reasons  of  our  actions!"  said  the 
Princess,  with  a  ring  of  something  like,  sarcastic 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND  THE  SON. 


213 


scorn.  "When  you  are  as  old  as  I  am,  it  will 
not  seem  so  simple  a  question — '  Why  did  you 
do  this  ?'  People  talk  of  their  motives  in  a  cut 
and  dried  way.  Every  woman  is  supposed  to 
have  the  same  set  of  motives,  or  else  to  be  a 
monster.  I  am  not  a  monster,  but  I  have  not  felt 
exactly  what  other  women  feel — or  say  they  feel, 
for  fear  of  being  thought  unlike  others.  When 
you  reproach  me  in  your  heart  for  sending  you 
away  from  me,  you  mean  that  I  ought  to  say  I 
felt  about  you  as  other  women  say  they  feel 
about  their  children.  I  did  not  feel  that.  I  was 
glad  to  be  freed  from  you.  But  I  did  well  for 
you,  and  I  gave  you  your  father's  fortune.  Do 
I  seem  now  to  be  revoking  every  thing? — Well, 
there  are  reasons.  I  feel  many  things  that  I 
can't  understand,  A  fatal  illness  has  been  grow- 
ing in  me  for  a  year.  I  shall  very  likely  not  live 
another  year.  I  will  not  deny  any  thing  I  have 
done.  I  will  not  pretend  to  love  where  I  have  no 
love.  But  shadows  are  rising  round  me.  Sick- 
ness makes  them.  If  I  have  wronged  the  dead — 
I  have  but  little  time  to  do  what  I  left  undone." 

The  varied  transitions  of  tone  with  which  this 
speech  was  delivered  were  as  perfect  as  the  most 
accomplished  actress  could  have  made  them.  The 
speech  was  in  fact  a  piece  of  what  may  be  called 
sincere  acting :  this  woman's  nature  was  one  in 
which  all  feeling — and  all  the  more  when  it  was 
tragic  as  well  as  real — immediately  became  mat- 
ter of  conscious  representation :  experience  imme- 
diately passed  into  drama,  and  she  acted  her  own 
emotions.  In  a  minor  degree  this  is  nothing  un- 
common, but  in  the  Princess  the  acting  had  a  rare 
perfection  of  physiognomy,  voice,  and  gesture.  It 
would  not  be  true  to  say  that  she  felt  less  because 
of  this  double  consciousness :  she  felt — that  is, 
her  mind  went  through — all  the  more,  but  with  a 
difference :  each  nucleus  of  pain  or  pleasure  had 
a  deep  atmosphere  of  the  excitement  or  spiritual 
intoxication  which  at  once  exalts  and  deadens. 
But  Deronda  made  no  reflection  of  this  kind.  All 
his  thoughts  hung  on  the  purport  of  what  his 
mother  was  saying;  her  tones  and  her  wonder- 
ful face  entered  into  his  agitation  without  being 
noted.  What  he  longed  for  with  an  awed  desire 
was  to  know  as  much  as  she  would  tell  him  of 
the  strange  mental  conflict  under  which  it  seemed 
that  he  had  been  brought  into  the  world  :  what 
his  compassionate  nature  made  the  controlling 
idea  within  him  were  the  suffering  and  the  con-- 
fession  that  breathed  through  her  later  words,  and 
these  forbade  any  further  question,  when  she 
paused  and  remained  silent,  with  her  brow  knit, 
her  head  turned  a  little  away  from  him,  and  her 
large  eyes  fixed  as  if  on  something  incorporeal. 
He  must  wait  for  her  to  speak  again.  She  did  so 
with  strange  abruptness,  turning  her  eyes  upon 
him  suddenly,  and  saying  more  quickly, 

"  Sir  Hugo  has  written  much  about  you.  He 
tells  me  you  have  a  wonderful  mind — you  com- 
prehend every  thing — you  are  wiser  than  he  is 
with  all  his  sixty  years.  You  say  you  are -glad 
to  know  that  you  were  born  a  Jew.  I  am  not 
going  to  tell  you  that  I  have  changed  my  mind 
about  that.  Your  feelings  are  against  mine.  You 
don't  thank  me  for  what  I  did.  Shall  you  com- 
prehend your  mother — or  only  blame  her  ?" 

"  There  is  not  a  fibre  within  me  but  makes  me 
wish  to  comprehend  her,"  said  Deronda,  meeting 
her  sharp  gaze  solemnly.  "  It  is  a  bitter  rever- 
sal of  my  longing  to  think  of  blaming  her.  What 


I  have  been  most  trying  to  do  for  fifteen  years  is 
to  have  some  understanding  of  those  who  differ 
from  myself." 

"  Then  you  have  become  unlike  your  grand- 
father in  that,"  said  the  mother,  "though  you  are 
a  young  copy  of  him  in  your  face.  He  never 
comprehended  me,  or  if  he  did,  he  only  thought 
of  fettering  me  into  obedience.  I  was  to  be  what 
he  called  '  the  Jewish  woman'  under  pain  of  his 
curse.  I  was  to  feel  every  thing  I  did  not  feel, 
and  believe  every  thing  I  did  not  believe.  I  was 
to  feel  awe  for  the  bit  of  parchment  in  the  mczuza 
over  the  door ;  to  dread  lest  a  bit  of  butter  should 
touch  a  bit  of  meat ;  to  think  it  beautiful  that 
men  should  bind  the  tephillin  on  them,  and  wom- 
en not — to  adore  the  wisdom  of  such  laws,  how- 
ever silly  they  might  seem  to  be.  I  was  to  love 
the  long  prayers  in  the  ugly  synagogue,  and  the 
howling,  and  the  gabbling,  and  the  dreadful  fasts, 
and  the  tiresome  feasts,  and  my  father's  endless 
discoursing  about  Our  People,  which  was  a  thun- 
der without  meaning  in  my  ears.  I  was  to  care 
forever  about  what  Israel  had  been ;  and  I  did 
not  care  at  all.  I  cared  for  the  wide  world,  and 
all  that  I  could  represent  in  it.  I  hated  living  un- 
der the  shadow  of  my  father's  strictness.  Teach- 
ing, teaching  for  everlasting — '  this  you  must  be,' 
'  that  you  must  not  be' — pressed  on  me  like  a 
frame  that  got  tighter  and  tighter  as  I  grew.  I 
wanted  to  live  a  large  life,  with  freedom  to  do 
what  every  one  else  did,  and  be  carried  along  in 
a  great  current,  not  obliged  to  care.  Ah !" — here 
her  tone  changed  to  one  of  a  more  bitter  incisive- 
ness — "you  are  glad  to  have  been  born  a  Jew. 
You  say  so.  That  is  because  you  have  not  been 
brought  up  as  a  Jew.  That  separateness  seems 
sweet  to  you  because  I  saved  you  from  it." 

"  When  you  resolved  on  that,  you  meant  that 
I  should  never  know  my  origin  ?"  said  Deronda, 
impulsively.  "  You  have  at  least  changed  in  your 
feeling  on  that  point." 

"  Yes,  that  was  what  I  meant.  That  is  what  I 
persevered  in.  And  it  is  not  true  to  say  that  I 
have  changed.  Things  have  changed  in  spite  of 
me.  I  am  still  the  same  Leonora" — she  pointed 
with  her  forefinger  to  her  breast — "  here  within 
me  is  the  same  desire,  the  same  will,  the  same 
choice,  but" — she  spread  out  her  hands,  palm  up- 
ward, on  each  side  of  her,  as  she  paused  with  a 
bitter  compression  of  her  lip,  then  let  her  voice 
fall  into  muffled,  rapid  utterance — "  events  come 
upon  us  like  evil  enchantments :  and  thoughts, 
feelings,  apparitions  in  the  darkness,  are  events — 
are  they  not  ?  I  don't  consent.  We  only  consent 
to  what  we  love.  I  obey  something  tyrannic" — 
she  spread  out  her  hands  again — "  I  am  forced  to 
be  withered,  to  feel  pain,  to  be  dying  slowly.  Do 
I  love  that?  Well,  I  have  been  forced  to  obey 
my  dead  father.  I  have  been  forced  to  tell  you 
that  you  are  a  Jew,  and  deliver  to  you  what  he 
commanded  me  to  deliver." 

"  I  beseech  you  to  tell  me  what  moved  you — 
when  you  were  young,  I  mean — to  take  the  course 
you  did,"  said  Deronda,  trying  by  this  reference 
to  the  past  to  escape  from  what  to  him  was  the 
heart-rending  piteousness  of  this  mingled  suffer- 
ing and  defiance.  "  I  gather  that  my  grandfather 
opposed  your  bent  to  be  an  artist.  Though  my 
own  experience  has  been  quite  different,  I  enter 
into  the  painf  ulness  of  your  struggle.  I  can  im- 
agine the  hardship  of  an  enforced  renunciation." 

"  No,"  said  the  Princess,  shaking  her  head,  and 


214 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


folding  her  arms  with  an  air  of  decision.  "  You 
are  not  a  woman.  You  may  try — but  you  can 
never  imagine  what  it  is  to  have  a  man's  force  of 
genius  in  you,  and  yet  to  suffer  the  slavery  of  be- 
ing a  girl.  To  have  a  pattern  cut  out — '  this  is 
the  Jewish  woman;  this  is  what  you  must  be; 
this  is  what  you  are  wanted  for ;  a  woman's  heart 
must  be  of  such  a  size  and  no  larger,  else  it  must 
be  pressed  small,  like  Chinese  feet ;  her  happi- 
ness is  to  be  made  as  cakes  are,  by  a  fixed  receipt.' 
That  was  what  my  father  wanted.  He  wished  I 
had  been  a  son ;  he  cared  for  me  as  a  make-shift 
link.  His  heart  was  set  on  his  Judaism.  He 
hated  that  Jewish  women  should  be  thought  of 
by  the  Christian  world  as  a  sort  of  ware  to  make 
public  singers  and  actresses  of.  As  if  we  were 
not  the  more  enviable  for  that !  That  is  a  chance 
of  escaping  from  bondage." 

"  Was  my  grandfather  a  learned  man  ?"  said 
Deronda,  eager  to  know  particulars  that  he  feared 
his  mother  might  not  think  of. 

She  answered  impatiently,  putting  up  her  hand, 
"  Oh  yes — and  a  clever  physician — and  good :  I 
don't  deny  that  he  was  good.  A  man  to  be  ad- 
mired in  a  play — grand,  with  an  iron  will.  Like 
the  old  Foscari  before  he  pardons.  But  such  men 
turn  their  wives  and  daughters  into  slaves.  They 
would  rule  the  world  if  they  could ;  but  not  rul- 
ing the  world,  they  throw  all  the  weight  of  their 
will  on  the  necks  and  souls  of  women.  But  na- 
ture sometimes  thwarts  them.  My  father  had  no 
other  child  than  his  daughter,  and  she  was  like 
himself." 

She  had  folded  her  arms  again,  and  looked  as 
if  she  were  ready  to  face  some  impending  attempt 
at  mastery. 

"  Your  father  was  different.  Unlike  me — all 
lovingness  and  affection.  I  knew  I  could  rule 
him,  and  I  made  him  secretly  promise  me  before 
I  married  him  that  he  would  put  no  hinderance 
in  the  way  of  my  being  an  artist.  My  father  was 
on  his  death-bed  when  we  were  married ;  from 
the  first  he  had  fixed  his  mind  on  my  marrying 
my  cousin  Ephraim.  And  when  a  woman's  will 
is  as  strong  as  the  man's  who  wants  to  govern  her, 
half  her  strength  must  be  concealment.  I  meant 
to  have  my  will  in  the  end,  but  I  could  only  have 
it  by  seeming  to  obey.  I  had  an  awe  of  my  fa- 
ther— always  I  had  had  an  awe  of  him :  it  was 
impossible  to  help  it.  I  hated  to  feel  awed — I 
wished  I  could  have  defied  him  openly,  but  I  never 
could.  It  was  what  I  could  not  imagine ;  I  could 
not  act  it  to  myself  that  I  should  begin  to  defy 
my  father  openly  and  succeed.  And  I  never 
would  risk  failure." 

That  last  sentence  was  uttered  with  an  abrupt 
emphasis,  and  she  paused  after  it  as  if  the  words 
had  raised  a  crowd  of  remembrances  which  ob- 
structed speech.  Her  son  was  listening  to  her 
with  feelings  more  and  more  highly  mixed  :  the 
first  sense  of  being  repelled  by  the  frank  coldness 
which  had  replaced  all  his  preconceptions  of  a 
mother's  tender  joy  in  the  sight  of  him  ;  the  first 
impulses  of  indignation  at  what  shocked  his  most 
cherished  emotions  and  principles — all  these  busy 
elements  of  collision  between  them  were  subsid- 
ing for  a  time,  and  making  more  and  more  room 
for  that  effort  at  just  allowance  and  that  admira- 
tion of  a  forcible  nature  whose  errors  lay  along 
high  pathways,  which  he  would  have  felt  if,  in- 
stead of  being  his  mother,  she  had  been  a  stranger 
who  had  appealed  to  his  sympathy.  Still  it  was 


impossible  to  be  dispassionate ;  he  trembled  lest 
the  next  thing  she  had  to  say  would  be  more  re- 
pugnant to  him  than  what  had  gone  before  ;  he 
was  afraid  of  the  strange  coercion  she  seemed  to 
be  under  to  lay  her  mind  bare  ;  he  almost  wished 
he  could  say,  "  Tell  me  only  what  is  necessary," 
and  then  again  he  felt  the  fascination  that  made 
him  watch  her  and  listen  to  her  eagerly.  He 
tried  to  recall  her  to  particulars  by  asking, 

"  Where  was  my  grandfather's  home  ?" 

"Here  in  Genoa,  when  I  was  married;  and 
his  family  had  lived  here  generations  ago.  But 
my  father  had  been  in  various  countries." 

"  You  must  surely  have  lived  in  England  ?" 

"  My  mother  was  English — a  Jewess  of  Portu- 
guese descent.  My  father  married  her  in  En- 
gland. Certain  circumstances  of  that  marriage 
made  all  the  difference  in  my  life :  through  that 
marriage  my  father  thwarted  his  own  plans.  My 
mother's  sister  was  a  singer,  and  afterward  she 
married  the  English  partner  of  a  merchant's 
house  here  in  Genoa,  and  they  came  and  lived 
here  eleven  years.  My  mother  died  when  I  was 
eight  years  old,  and  then  my  father  allowed  me 
to  be  continually  with  my  aunt  Leonora  and  be 
taught  under  her  eyes,  as  if  he  had  not  minded 
the  danger  of  her  encouraging  my  wish  to  be  a 
singer,  as  she  had  been.  But  this  was  it — I  saw 
it  again  and  again  in  my  father:  he  did  not 
guard  against  consequences,  because  he  felt  sure 
he  could  hinder  them  if  he  liked.  Before  my 
aunt  left  Genoa,  I  had  had  enough  teaching  to 
bring  out  the  born  singer  and  actress  within  me : 
my  father  did  not  know  every  thing  that  was 
done ;  but  he  knew  that  I  was  taught  music  and 
singing — he  knew  my  inclination.  That  was 
nothing  to  him :  he  meant  that  I  should  obey  his 
will.  And  he  was  resolved  that  I  should  marry 
my  cousin  Ephraim,  the  only  one  left  of  my 
father's  family  that  he  knew.  I  wanted  not  to 
marry.  I  thought  of  all  plans  to  resist  it,  but  at 
last  I  found  that  I  could  rule  my  cousin,  and  I 
consented.  My  father  died  three  weeks  after  we 
were  married,  and  then  I  had  my  way !"  She 
uttered  these  words  almost  exultantly ;  but  after 
a  little  pause  her  face  chapged,  and  she  said,  in 
a  biting  tone, "It  has  not  lasted,  though.  My 
father  is  getting  his  way  now." 

She  began  to  look  more  contemplatively  again 
at  her  son,  and  presently  said, 

"You  are  like  him  —  but  milder  —  there  is 
something  of  your  own  father  in  you ;  and  he 
made  it  the  labor  of  his  life  to  devote  himself  to 
me :  wound  up  his  money-changing  and  banking, 
and  lived  to  wait  upon  me — he  went  against  his 
conscience  for  me.  As  I  loved  the  life  of  my 
art,  so  he  loved  me.  Let  me  look  at  your  hand 
again — the  hand  with  the  ring  on.  It  was  your 
father's  ring." 

He  drew  his  chair  nearer  to  her  and  gave  her 
his  hand.  We  know  what  kind  of  hand  it  was : 
her  own,  very  much  smaller,  was  of  the  same 
type.  As  he  felt  the  smaller  hand  holding  his, 
as  he  saw  nearer  to  him  the  face  that  held  a 
likeness  of  his  own,  aged  not  by  time  but  by  in- 
tensity, the  strong  bent  of  his  nature  ton  UK  1  a 
reverential  tenderness  asserted  itself  above  every 
other  impression,  and  in  his  most  fervent  tone  he 
said, 

"  Mother !  take  us  all  into  your  heart — the  liv- 
ing and  the  dead.  Forgive  every  thing  that  hurts 
you  in  the  past.  Take  my  affection." 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AND   THE  SON. 


215 


She  looked  at  him  admiringly  rather  than  lov- 
ingly, then  kissed  him  on  the  brow,  and  saying, 
sadly,  "  I  reject  nothing,  but  I  have  nothing  to 
give/'  she  released  his  hand  and  sank  back  on 
her  cushions.  Deronda  turned  pale  with  what 
seems  always  more  of  a  sensation  than  an  emo- 
tion— the  pain  of  repulsed  tenderness.  She  no- 
ticed the  expression  of  pain,  and  said,  still  with 
melodious  melancholy  in  her  tones : 

"  It  is  better  so.  We  must  part  again  soon, 
and  you  owe  me  no  duties.  I  did  not  wish  you 
to  be  born.  I  parted  with  you  willingly.  When 
your  father  died,  I  resolved  that  I  would  have  no 
more  ties  but  such  as  I  could  free  myself  from. 
I  was  the  Alcharisi  you  have  heard  of :  the  name 
had  magic  wherever  it  was  carried.  Men  courted 
me.  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  was  one  who  wished  to 
marry  me.  He  was  madly  in  love  with  me.  One 
day  I  asked  him, '  Is  there  a  man  capable  of  do- 
ing something  for  love  of  me,  and  expecting  noth- 
ing in  return  ?'  He  said, '  What  is  it  you  want 
done  ?'  I  said, '  Take  my  boy  and  bring  him  up 
as  an  Englishman,  and  let  him  never  know  any 
thing  about  his  parents.'  You  were  little  more 
than  two  years  old,  and  were  sitting  on  his  foot. 
He  declared  that  he  would  pay  money  to  have 
such  a  boy.  I  had  not  meditated  much  on  the 
plan  beforehand,  but  as  soon  as  I  had  spoken 
about  it,  it  took  possession  of  me  as  something  I 
could  not  rest  without  doing.  At  first  he  thought 
I  was  not  serious,  but  I  convinced  him,  and  he 
was  never  surprised  at  any  thing.  He  agreed 
that  it  would  be  for  your  good,  and  the  finest 
thing  for  you.  A  great  singer  and  actress  is  a 
queen,  but  she  gives  no  royalty  to  her  son. — All 
that  happened  at  Naples.  And  afterward  I  made 
Sir  Hugo  the  trustee  of  your  fortune.  That  is 
what  I  did;  and  I  had  a  joy  in  doing  it.  My 
father  had  tyrannized  over  me- — he  cared  more 
about  a  grandson  to  come  than  he  did  about  me : 
I  counted  as  nothing.  You  were  to  be  such  a 
Jew  as  he ;  you  were  to  be  what  he  wanted.  But 
you  were  my  son,  and  it  was  my  turn  to  say  what 
you  should  be.  I  said  you  should  not  know  you 
were  a  Jew." 

"  And  for  months  events  have  been  preparing 
me  to  be  glad  that  I  am  a  Jew,"  said  Deronda, 
his  opposition  roused  again.  The  point  touched 
the  quick  of  his  experience.  "  It  would  always 
have  been  better  that  I  should  have  known  the 
truth.  I  have  always  been  rebelling  against  the 
secrecy  that  looked  like  shame.  It  is  no  shame  to 
have  Jewish  parents — the  shame  is  to  disown  it." 

"  You  say  it  was  a  shame  to  me,  then,  that  I 
used  that  secrecy,"  said  his  mother,  with  a  flash 
of  new  anger.  "  There  is  no  shame  attaching  to 
me.  I  have  no  reason  to  be  ashamed.  I  rid  my- 
self of  the  Jewish  tatters  and  gibberish  that  make 
people  nudge  each  other  at  sight  of  us,  as  if  we 
were  tattooed  under  our  clothes,  though  our  faces 
are  as  whole  as  theirs.  I  delivered  you  from  the 
pelting  contempt  that  pursues  Jewish  separate- 
ness.  I  am  not  ashamed  that  I  did  it  It  was  the 
better  for  you." 

"  Then  why  have  you  now  undone  the  secrecy  ? 
— no,  not  undone  it — the  effects  will  never  be  un- 
done. But  why  have  you  now  sent  for  me  to  tell 
me  that  I  am  a  Jew  ?"  said  Deronda,  with  an  in- 
tensity of  opposition  in  feeling  that  was  almost 
bitter.  It  seemed  as  if  her  words  had  called  out 
a  latent  obstinacy  of  race  in  him. 

"Why?— ah,  why?"  said  the  Princess,  rising 


quickly  and  walking  to  the  other  side  of  the  room, 
where  she  turned  round  and  slowly  approached 
him,  as  he,  too,  stood  up.  Then  she  began  to 
speak  again  in  a  more  veiled  voice.  "  I  can't  ex- 
plain ;  I  can  only  say  what  is.  I  don't  love  my 
father's  religion  now  any  more  than  I  did  then. 
Before  I  married  the  second  time  I  was  baptized ; 
I  made  myself  like  the  people  I  lived  among.  I 
had  a  right  to  do  it ;  I  was  not,  like  a  brute,  obliged 
to  go  with  my  own  herd.  I  have  not  repented ; 
I  will  not  say  that  I  have  repented.  But  yet" — 
here  she  had  come  near  to  her  son,  and  paused ; 
then  again  retreated  a  little  and  stood  still,  as  if 
resolute  not  to  give  way  utterly  to  an  imperious 
influence ;  but,  as  she  went  on  speaking,  she  be- 
came more  and  more  unconscious  of  any  thing 
but  the  awe  that  subdued  her  voice.  "  It  is  ill- 
ness, I  don't  doubt  that  it  has  been  gathering  ill- 
ness— my  mind  has  gone  back ;  more  than  a  year 
ago  it  began.  You  see  my  gray  hair,  my  worn 
look:  it  has  all  come  fast  Sometimes  I  am  in 
an  agony  of  pain — I  dare  say  I  shall  be  to-night. 
Then  it  is  as  if  all  the  life  I  have  chosen  to  live, 
all  thoughts,  all  will,  forsook  me  and  left  me  alone 
in  spots  of  memory,  and  I  can't  get  away:  my 
pain  seems  to  keep  me  there.  My  childhood — my 
girlhood — the  day  of  my  marriage — the  day  of 
my  father's  death — there  seems  to  be  nothing 
since.  Then  a  great  horror  comes  over  me : 
what  do  I  know  of  life  or  death  ?  and  what  my 
father  called  '  right'  may  be  a  power  that  is  lay- 
ing hold  of  me — that  is  clutching  me  now.  Well, 
I  will  satisfy  him.  I  can  not  go  into  the  darkness 
without  satisfying  him.  I  have  hidden  what  was 
his.  I  thought  once  I  would  burn  it.  I  have  not 
burned  it  I  thank  God  I  have  not  burned  it !" 

She  threw  herself  on  her  cushions  again,  visi- 
bly fatigued.  Deronda,  moved  too  strongly  by  her 
suffering  for  other  impulses  to  act  within  him, 
drew  near  her,  and  said,  entreatingly, 

"Will  you  not  spare  yourself  this  evening? 
Let  us  leave  the  rest  till  to-morrow." 

"  No,"  she  said,  decisively.  "  I  will  confess  it 
all,  now  that  I  have  come  up  to  it.  Often  when 
I  am  at  ease  it  all  fades  away ;  my  whole  self 
comes  quite  back ;  but  I  know  it  will  sink  away 
again,  and  the  other  will  come — the  poor,  solita- 
ry, forsaken  remains  of  self  that  can  resist  noth- 
ing. It  was  my  nature  to  resist,  and  say, '  I  have 
a  right  to  resist.'  Well,  I  say  so  still  when  I  have 
any  strength  in  me.  You  have  heard  me  say  it, 
and  I  don't  withdraw  it  But  when  my  strength 
goes,  some  other  right  forces  itself  upon  me  like 
iron  in  an  inexorable  hand ;  and  even  when  I  am 
at  ease,  it  is  beginning  to  make  ghosts  upon  the 
daylight  And  now  you  have  made  it  worse  for 
me,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden  return  of  impetuos- 
ity ;  "  but  I  shall  have  told  you  every  thing.  And 
what  reproach  is  there  against  me,"  she  added, 
bitterly,  "since  I  have  made  you  glad  to  be  a 
Jew  ?  Joseph  Kalonymos  reproached  me :  he 
said  you  had  been  turned  into  a  proud  English- 
man, who  resented  being  touched  by  a  Jew.  I 
wish  you  had  !"  she  ended,  with  a  new  marvelous 
alternation.  It  was  as  if  her  mind  were  breaking 
into  several,  one  jarring  the  other  into  impulsive 
action. 

"  Who  is  Joseph  Kalonymos  ?"  said  Deronda, 
with  a  darting  recollection  of  that  Jew  who  touch- 
ed his  arm  in  the  Frankfort  synagogue. 

"  Ah !  some  vengeance  sent  him  back  from  the 
East  that  he  might  see  you  and  come  to  reproach 


216 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


me.  He  was  my  father's  friend.  He  knew  of 
your  birth :  he  knew  of  my  husband's  death,  and 
once,  twenty  years  ago,  after  he  had  been  away  in 
the  Levant,  he  came  to  see  me  and  inquire  about 
you.  I  told  him  that  you  were  dead :  I  meant 
you  to  be  dead  to  all  the  world  of  my  childhood. 
If  I  had  said  you  were  living,  he  would  have  in- 
terfered with  my  plans :  he  would  have  taken  on 
him  to  represent  my  father,  and  have  tried  to 
make  me  recall  what  I  had  done.  What  could  I 
do.  but  say  you  were  dead  ?  The  act  was  done. 
If  I  had  told  him  of  it,  there  would  have  been 
trouble  and  scandal — and  all  to  conquer  me,  who 
would  not  have  been  conquered.  I  was  strong 
then,  and  I  would  have  had  my  will,  though  there 
might  have  been  a  hard  fight  against  me.  I  took 
the  way  to  have  it  without  any  fight.  I  felt  then 
that  I  was  not  really  deceiving:  it  would  have 
come  to  the  same  in  the  end ;  or  if  not  to  the 
same,  to  something  worse.  He  believed  me,  and 
begged  that  I  would  give  up  to  him  the  chest 
that  my  father  had  charged  me  and  my  husband 
to  deliver  to  our  eldest  son.  I  knew  what  was 
in  the  chest — things  that  had  been  dinned  in  my 
ears  since  I  had  had  any  understanding — things 
that  were  thrust  on.  my  mind  that  I  might  feel 
them  like  a  wall  around  my  life — my  fife  that 
was  growing  like  a  tree.  Once,  after  my  hus- 
band died,  I  was  going  to  burn  the  chest.  But  it 
was  difficult  to  burn ;  and  burning  a  chest  and 
papers  looks  like  a  shameful  act.  I  have  com- 
mitted no  shameful  act — except  what  Jews  would 
call  shameful.  I  had  kept  the  chest,  and  I  gave 
it  to  Joseph  Kalonymos.  He  went  away  mourn- 
ful, and  said, '  If  you  marry  again,  and  if  another 
grandson  is  born  to  him  who  is  departed,  I  will 
deliver  up  the  chest  to  him.'  I  bowed  in  silence. 
I  meant  not  to  marry  again — no  more  than  I 
meant  to  be  the  shattered  woman  that  I  am  now." 

She  ceased  speaking,  and  her  head  sank  back, 
while  she  looked  vaguely  before  her.  Her  thought 
was  traveling  through  the  years,  and  when  she 
began  to  speak  again,  her  voice  had  lost  its  argu- 
mentative spirit,  and  had  fallen  into  a  veiled  tone 
of  distress. 

"But  months  ago  this  Kalonymos  saw  you  in 
the  synagogue  at  Frankfort.  He  saw  you  enter 
the  hotel,  and  he  went  to  ask  your  name.  There 
was  nobody  else  in  the  world  to  whom  the  name 
would  have  told  any  thing  about  me." 

"  Then  it  is  not  my  real  name  ?"  said  Deronda, 
with  a  dislike  even  to  this  trifling  part  of  the  dis- 
guise which  had  been  thrown  round  him. 

"  Oh,  as  real  as  another,"  said  his  mother,  in- 
differently. "  The  Jews  have  always  been  chan- 
ging their  names.  My  father's  family  had  kept 
the  name  of  Charisi :  my  husband  was  a  Charisi. 
When  I  came  out  as  a  singer,  we  made  it  Alcha- 
risu  But  there  had  been  a  branch  of  the  family 
my  father  had  lost  sight  of  who  called  themselves 
Deronda,  and  when  I  wanted  a  name  for  you, 
and  Sir  Hugo  said,  '  Let  it  be  a  foreign  name,'  I 
thought  of  Deronda.  But  Joseph  Kalonymos  had 
heard  my  father  speak  of  the  Deronda  branch, 
and  the  name  confirmed  his  suspicion.  He  began 
to  suspect  what  had  been  done.  It  was  as  if 
every  thing  had  been  whispered  to  him  in  the  air. 
He  found  out  where  I  was.  He  took  a  journey 
into  Russia  to  see  me ;  he  found  me  weak  and 
shattered.  He  had  come  back  again,  with  his 
white  hair,  and  with  rage  in  his  soul  against  me. 
He  said  I  was  going  down  to  the  grave  clad  in 


falsehood  and  robbery — falsehood  to  my  father 
and  robbery  of  my  own  child.  He  accused  me 
of  having  kept  the  knowledge  of  your  birth  from 
you,  and  having  brought  you  up  as  if  you  had 
been  the  son  of  an  English  gentleman.  Well,  it 
was  true ;  and  twenty  years  before  I  would  have 
maintained  that  I  had  a  right  to  do  it.  But  I  can 
maintain  nothing  now.  No  faith  is  strong  within 
me.  My  father  may  have  God  on  his  side.  This 
man's  words  were  like  lion's  teeth  upon  me.  My 
father's  threats  eat  into  me  with  my  pain.  If  I  tell 
every  thing — if  I  deliver  up  every  thing — what 
else  can  be  demanded  of  me  ?  I  can  not  make 
myself  love  the  people  I  have  never  loved — is  it 
not  enough  that  I  lost  the  life  I  did  love  ?" 

She  had  leaned  forward  a  little  in  her  low-toned 
pleading,  that  seemed  like  a  smothered  cry :  her 
arms  and  hands  were  stretched  out  at  full  length, 
as  if  strained  in  beseeching.  Deronda's  soul  was 
absorbed  in  the  anguish  of  compassion.  He  could 
not  mind  now  that  he  had  been  repulsed  before. 
His  pity  made  a  flood  of  forgiveness  within  him. 
His  single  impulse  was  to  kneel  by  her  and  take 
her  hand  gently  between  his  palms,  while  he  said, 
in  that  exquisite  voice  of  soothing  which  expresses 
oneness  with  the  sufferer, 

"  Mother,  take  comfort !" 

She  did  not  seem  inclined  to  repulse  him  now, 
but  looked  down  at  him  and  let  him  take  both 
her  hands  to  fold  between  his.  Gradually  tears 
gathered,  but  she  pressed  her  handkerchief 
against  her  eyes  and  then  leaned  her  cheek 
against  his  brow,  as  if  she  wished  that  they 
should  not  look  at  each  other. 

"  Is  it  not  possible  that  I  could  be  near  you 
often  and  comfort  you  ?"  said  Deronda.  He  was 
under  that  stress  of  pity  that  propels  us  on  sac- 
rifices. 

"  No,  not  possible,"  she  answered,  lifting  up  her 
head  again  and  withdrawing  her  hand  as  if  she 
wished  him  to  move  away.  "  I  have  a  husband 
and  five  children.  None  of  them  know  of  your 
existence." 

Deronda  felt  painfully  silenced.  He  rose  and 
stood  at  a  little  distance. 

"You  wonder  why  I  married,"  she  went  on 
presently,  under  the  influence  of  a  newly  recur- 
ring thought.  "  I  meant  never  to  marry  again. 
I  meant  to  be  free,  and  to  live  for  my  art.  I  had 
parted  with  you.  I  had  no  bonds.  For  nine  years 
I  was  a  queen.  I  enjoyed  the  life  I  had  longed 
for.  But  something  befell  me.  It  was  like  a  fit 
of  forgetfulness.  I  began  to  sing  out  of  tune. 
They  told  me  of  it.  Another  woman  was  thrust- 
ing herself  in  my  place.  I  could  not  endure  the 
prospect  of  failure  and  decline.  It  was  horrible 
to  me."  She  started  up  again,  with  a  shudder, 
and  lifted  screening  hands  like  one  who  dreads 
missiles.  "It  drove  me  to  marry.  I  prete^d- 
ed  that  I  preferred  being  the  wife  of  a  Russian 
noble  to  being  the  greatest  lyric  actress  of  Europe ; 
I  made  believe — I  acted  that  part.  It  was  because 
I  felt  my  greatness  sinking  away  from  me,  as  I 
feel  my  life  sinking  now.  I  would  not  wait  till 
men  said, '  She  had  better  go.' " 

She  sank  into  her  seat  again  and  looked  at  the 
evening  sky  as  she  went  on :  "I  repented.  It 
was  a  resolve  taken  in  desperation.  That  singing 
out  of  tune  was  only  like  a  fit  of  illness ;  it  went 
away.  I  repented ;  but  it  was  too  late.  I  could 
not  go  back.  All  things  hindered  me — all  things." 

A  new  haggardncss  had  come  in  her  face,  but 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AND   THE  SOX. 


217 


her  son  refrained  from  again  urging  her  to  leave 
further  speech  till  the  morrow :  there  was  evi- 
dently some  mental  relief  for  her  in  an  outpour- 
ing such  as  she  could  never  have  allowed  herself 
before.  He  stood  still  while  she  maintained  si- 
lence longer  than  she  knew,  and  the  light  was 
perceptibly  fading.  At  last  she  turned  to  him 
and  said, 

"  I  can  bear  no  more  now."  She  put  out  her 
hand,  but  then  quickly  withdrew  it,  saying,  "  Stay. 
How  do  I  know  that  I  can  see  you  again?  I 
can  not  bear  to  be  seen  when  I  am  in  pain." 

She  drew  forth  a  pocket-book,  and  taking  out 
a  letter,  said,  "  This  is  addressed  to  the  banking 
house  in  Mainz  where  you  are  to  go  for  your 
grandfather's  chest.  It  is  a  letter  written  by 
Joseph  Kalonymos;  if  he  is  not  there  himself, 
this  order  of  his  will  be  obeyed." 

When  Deronda  had  taken  the  letter,  she  said, 
with  effort,  but  more  gently  than  before,  "  Kneel 
again,  and  let  me  kiss  you." 

He  obeyed,  and,  holding  his  head  between  her 
hands,  she  kissed  him  solemnly  on  the  brow. 
"  You  see  I  had  no  life  left  to  love  you  with,"  she 
said,  in  a  low  murmur.  "  But  there  is  more  for- 
tune for  you.  Sir  Hugo  was  to  keep  it  in  reserve. 
I  gave  you  all  your  father's  fortune.  They  can 
never  accuse  me  of  robbery  there." 

"  If  you  had  needed  any  thing  I  would  have 
worked  for  you,"  said  Deronda,  conscious  of  a 
disappointed  yearning — a  shutting  out  forever 
from  long  early  vistas  of  affectionate  imagination. 

"  I  need  nothing  that  the  skill  of  man  can  give 
me,"  said  his  mother,  still  holding  his  head  and 
perusing  his  features.  "  But  perhaps  now  I  have 
satisfied  my  father's  will,  your  face  will  come  in- 
stead of  his — your  young,  loving  face." 

"But  you  will  see  me  again?"  said  Deronda, 
anxiously. 

"  Yes — perhaps.    Wait,  wait.    Leave  me  now." 


CHAPTER  LII. 

"La  mcme  fermeto  qui  sert  i  r6sister  &  1'araour  sert 
nueei  ft  le  rendre  violent  et  durable ;  et  lea  personnes 
foibles  qui  sont  toujonru  agitees  des  passions  n'en  sont 
presque  jamais  veritabletneut  remplies." — LA.  ROCHE- 
FOUCAULD. 

AMONG  Deronda's  letters  the  next  morning  was 
one  from  Hans  Meyrick  of  four  quarto  pages,  in 
the  small  beautiful  handwriting  which  ran  in  the 
Meyrick  family. 

"  MY  DEAR  DEROSDA, — In  return  for  your  sketch 
of  Italian  movements  and  your  view  of  the  world's 
affairs  generally,  I  may  say  that  here  at  home  the 
most  judicious  opinion  going  as  to  the  effects  of 
present  causes  is  that  '  time  will  show.'  As  to 
the  present  causes  of  past  effects,  it  is  now  seen 
that  the  late  swindling  telegrams  account  for  the 
last  year's  cattle  plague — which  is  a  refutation 
of  philosophy  falsely  so  called,  and  justifies  the 
compensation  to  the  farmers.  My  own  idea  that 
a  murrain  will  shortly  break  out  in  the  commer- 
cial class,  and  that  the  cause  will  subsequently 
disclose  itself  in  the  ready  sale  of  all  rejected 
pictures,  has  been  called  an  unsound  use  of  anal- 
ogy; but  there  are  minds  that  will  not  hesitate 
to  rob  even  the  neglected  painter  of  his  solace. 
To  my  feeling  there  is  great  beauty  in  the  concep- 
tion that  some  bad  judge  might  give  a  high  price 


for  my  Berenice  series,  and  that  the  men  in  the 
city  would  have  already  been  punished  for  my  ill- 
merited  luck. 

"Meanwhile  I  am  consoling  myself  for  your 
absence  by  finding  my  advantage  in  it — shining 
like  Hesperus  when  Hyperion  has  departed — 
sitting  with  our  Hebrew  prophet,  and  making  a 
study  of  his  head,  in  the  hours  when  he  used  to 
be  occupied  with  you — getting  credit  with  him  as 
a  learned  young  Gentile,  who  would  have  been  a 
Jew  if  he  could — and  agreeing  with  him  in  the 
general  principle  that  whatever  is  best  is  for  th'at 
reason  Jewish.  I  never  held  it  my  forte  to  be  a 
severe  reasoner,  but  I  can  see  that  if  whatever  is 
best  is  A,  and  B  happens  to  be  best,  B  must  be 
A,  however  little  you  might  have  expected  it 
beforehand.  On  that  principle,  I  could  see  the 
force  of  a  pamphlet  I  once  read  to  prove  that  all 
good  art  was  Protestant.  However,  our  prophet  is 
an  uncommonly  interesting  sitter — a  better  model 
than  Rembrandt  had  for  his  Rabbi — and  I  never 
come  away  from  him  without  a  new  discovery. 
For  one  thing,  it  is  A  constant  wonder  to  me  that, 
with  all  his  fiery  feeling  for  his  race  and  their 
traditions,  he  is  no  strait-laced  Jew,  spitting  after 
the  word  Christian,  and  enjoying  the  prospect  that 
the  Gentile  mouth  will  water  in  vain  for  a  slice  of 
the  roasted  Leviathan,  while  Israel  will  be  sending 
up  plates  for  more,  ad  libitum.  (You  perceive  that 
my  studies  had  taught  me  what  to  expect  from 
the  orthodox  Jew.)  I  confess  that  I  have  always 
held  lightly  by  your  account  of  Mordecai,  as  apolo- 
getic, and  merely  part  of  your  disposition  to  take 
an  antediluvian  point  of  view,  lest  you  should  do 
injustice  to  the  megatherium.  But  now  I  have 
given  ear  to  him  in  his  proper  person,  I  find  him 
really  a  sort  of  philosophical-allegorical-mystical 
believer,  and  yet  with  a  sharp  dialectic  point,  so 
that  any  argumentative  rattle  of  peas  in  a  blad- 
der might  soon  be  pricked  into  silence  by  him. 
The  mixture  may  be  one  of  the  Jewish  preroga- 
tives, for  what  I  know.  In  fact,  his  mind  seems 
so  broad  that  I  find  my  own  correct  opinions 
lying  in  it  quite  commodiously,  and  how  they 
are  to  be  brought  into  agreement  with  the  vast 
remainder  is  his  affair,  not  mine.  I  leave  it  to 
him  to  settle  our  basis,  never  yet  having  seen  a 
basis  which  is  not  a  world-supporting  elephant, 
more  or  less  powerful  and  expensive  to  keep. 
My  means  will  not  allow  me  to  keep  a  private 
elephant.  I  go  into  mystery  instead,  as  cheaper 
and  more  lasting — a  sort  of  gas  which  is  likely 
to  be  continually  supplied  by  the  decomposition 
of  the  elephants.  And  if  I  like  the  look  of  an 
opinion,  I  treat  it  civilly,  without  suspicious  in- 
quiries. I  have  quite  a  friendly  feeling  toward 
Mordecai's  notion  that  a  whole  Christian  is  three- 
fourths  a  Jew,  and  that  from  the  Alexandrian 
time  downward  the  most  comprehensive  minds 
have  been  Jewish ;  for  I  think  of  pointing  out  to 
Mirah  that,  Arabic  and  other  accidents  of  life 
apart,  there  is  really  little  difference  between  me 
and — Maimonides.  But  I  have  lately  been  find- 
ing out  that  it  is  your  shallow  lover  who  can't 
help  making  a  declaration.  If  Mirah's  ways  were 
less  distracting,  and  it  were  less  of  a  heaven  to 
be  in  her  presence  and  watch  her,  I  must  long 
ago  have  flung  myself  at  her  feet,  and  requested 
her  to  tell  me,  with  less  indirectness,  whether  she 
wished  me  to  blow  my  brains  out.  I  have  a  knack 
of  hoping,  which  is  a's  good  as  an  estate  in  rever- 
sion, if  one  can  keep  from  the  temptation  of  turn- 


218 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


ing  it  into  certainty,  which  may  spoil  all.  My 
Hope  wanders  among  the  orchard  blossoms,  feels 
the  warm  snow  falling  on  it  through  the  sunshine, 
and  is  in  doubt  of  nothing;  but,  catching  sight 
of  Certainty  in  the  distance,  sees  an  ugly  Janus- 
faced  deity,  with  a  dubious  wink  on  the  hither 
side  of  him,  and  turns  quickly  away.  But  you, 
with  your  supreme  reasonableness  and  self-nulli- 
fication and  preparation  for  the  worst — you  know 
nothing  about  the  drama  of  Hope,  that  immortal 
delicious  maiden,  forever  courted,  forever  propi- 
tious, whom  fools  have  called  deceitful,  as  if  it 
were  Hope  that  carried  the  cup  of  disappoint- 
ment, whereas  it  is  her  deadly  enemy  Certainty, 
whom  she  only  escapes  by  transformation.  (You 
observe  my  new  vein  of  allegory?)  Seriously, 
however,  I  must  be  permitted  to  allege  that  truth 
will  prevail,  that  prejudice  will  melt  before  it, 
that  diversity,  accompanied  by  merit,  will  make 
itself  felt  as  fascination,  and  that  no  virtuous 
aspiration  will  be  frustrated — all  which,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  are  doctrines  of  the  schools,  and  all  im- 
ply that  the  Jewess  I  prefer  will  prefer  me.  Any 
blockhead  can  cite  generalities,  but  the  master- 
mind discerns  the  particular  cases  they  represent. 
"  I  am  less  convinced  that  my  society  makes 
amends  to  Mordecai  for  your  absence,  but  another 
substitute  occasionally  comes  in  the  form  of  Jacob 
Cohen.  It  is  worth  while  to  catch  our  prophet's 
expression  when  he  has  that  remarkable  type  of 
young  Israel  on  his  knee,  and  pours  forth  some 
Semitic  inspiration  with  a  sublime  look  of  mel- 
ancholy patience  and  devoutness.  Sometimes  it 
occurs  to  Jacob  that  Hebrew  will  be  more  edify- 
ing to  him  if  he  stops  his  ears  with  his  palms,  and 
imitates  the  venerable  sounds  as  heard  through 
that  muffling  medium.  When  Mordecai  gently 
draws  down  the  little  fists  and  holds  them  fast, 
Jacob's  features  all  take  on  an  extraordinary  ac- 
tivity, very  much  as  if  he  were  walking  through 
a  menagerie  and  trying  to  imitate  every  animal  in 
turn,  succeeding  best  with  the  owl  and  the  pec- 
cary. But  I  dare  say  you  have  seen  something 
of  this.  He  treats  me  "with  the  easiest  familiar- 
ity, and  seems  in  general  to  look  at  me  as  a  sec- 
ond-hand Christian  commodity,  likely  to  come 
down  in  price,  remarking  on  my  disadvantages 
with  a  frankness  which  seems  to  imply  some 
thoughts  of  future  purchase.  It  is  pretty,  though, 
to  see  the  change  in  him  if  Mirah  happens  to  come 
in.  He  turns  child  suddenly — his  age  usually 
strikes  one  as  being  like  the  Israelitish  garments 
in  the  desert,  perhaps  near  forty,  yet  with  an  air 
of  recent  production.  But,  with  Mirah,  he  re- 
minds me  of  the  dogs  that  have  been  brought  up 
by  women,  and  remain  manageable  by  them  only. 
Still,  the  dog  is  fond  of  Mordecai  too,  and  brings 
sugar-plums  to  share  with  him,  filling  his  own 
mouth  to  rather  an  embarrassing  extent,  and 
watching  how  Mordecai  deals  with  a  smaller  sup- 
ply. Judging  from  this  modern  Jacob  at  the  age 
of  six,  my  astonishment  is  that  his  race  has  not 
bought  us  all  up  long  ago,  and  pocketed  our  fee- 
bler generations  in  the  form  of  stock  and  scrip, 
as  so  much  slave  property.  There  is  one  Jewess 
I  should  not  mind  being  slave  to.  But  I  wish  I 
did  not  imagine  that  Mirah  gets  a  little  sadder, 
and  tries  all  the  while  to  hide  it.  It  is  natural 
enough,  of  course,  while  she  has  to  watch  the  slow 
death  of  this  brother,  whom  she  has  taken  to  wor- 
shiping with  such  looks  of  loving  devoutness  that 
I  am  ready  to  wish  myself  in  his  place. 


"  For  the  rest,  we  are  a  little  merrier  than  usual. 
Rex  Gascoigne — you  remember  a  head  you  ad- 
mired among  my  sketches,  a  fellow  with  a  good 
upper  lip,  reading  law— has  got  some  rooms  in 
town  now  not  far  off  us,  and  has  had  a  neat  sister 
(upper  lip  also  good)  staying  with  him  the  last 
fortnight.  I  have  introduced  them  both  to  my 
mother  and  the  girls,  who  have  found  out  from 
Miss  Gascoigne  that  she  is  cousin  to  your  Van- 
dyck  duchess ! ! !  I  put  the  notes  of  exclamation 
to  mark  the  surprise  that  the  information  at  first 
produced  on  my  feeble  understanding.  On  re- 
flection I  discovered  that  there  was  not  the  least 
ground  for  surprise,  unless  I  had  beforehand  be- 
lieved that  nobody  could  be  any  body's  cousin 
without  my  knowing  it.  This  sort  of  surprise,  I 
take  it,  depends  on  a  liveliness  of  the  spine,  with 
a  more  or  less  constant  nullity  of  brain.  There 
was  a  fellow  I  used  to  meet  at  Rome  who  was  in 
an  effervescence  of  surprise  at  contact  with  the 
simplest  information.  Tell  him  what  you  would 
— that  you  were  fond  of  easy  boots— he  would 
always  say, '  No !  are  you  ?'  with  the  same  ener- 
gy of  wonder :  the  very  fellow  of  whom  pastoral 
Browne  wrote  prophetically, 

'A  wretch  so  empty  that  if  e'er  there  be 
In  nature  found  the  least  vacnity, 
Twill  be  in  him.' 

I  have  accounted  for  it  all — he  had  a  lively  spine. 
"However,  this  cousinship  with  the  duchess 
came  out  by  chance  one  day  that  Mirah  was  with 
them  at  home  and  they  were  talking  about  the 
Mallingers.  Apropos  ;  I  am  getting  so  important 
that  I  have  rival  invitations.  Gascoigne  wants 
me  to  go  down  with  him  to  his  father's  Rectory 
in  August  and  see  the  country  round  there.  But 
I  think  self-interest  well  understood  will  take  me 
to  Monk's  Topping,  for  Sir  Hugo  has  invited  me, 
and  proposes — God  bless  him  for  his  rashness ! — 
that  I  should  make  a  picture  of  his  three  daughters 
sitting  on  a  bank — as  he  says,  in  the  Gainsborough 
style.  He  came  to  my  studio  the  other  day  and 
recommended  me  to  apply  myself  to  portrait.  Of 
course  I  know  what  that  means. — '  My  good  fel- 
low, your  attempts  at  the  historic  and  poetic  are 
simply  pitiable.  Your  brush  is  just  that  of  a  suc- 
cessful portrait  painter — it  has  a  little  truth  and 
a  great  facility  in  falsehood — your  idealism  will 
never  do  for  gods  and  goddesses  and  heroic  story, 
but  it  may  fetch  a  high  price  as  flattery.  Fate, 
my  friend,  has  made  you  the  hinder  wheel — rota 
posterior  currus,  et  in  axe  secundo — run  behind, 
because  you  can't  help  it.' — What  great  effort  it 
evidently  costs  our  friends  to  give  us  these  candid 
opinions !  I  have  even  known  a  man  take  the 
trouble  to  call,  in  order  to  tell  me  that  I  had  irre- 
trievably exposed  my  want  of  judgment  in  treating 
my  subject,  and  that  if  I  had  asked  him  he  would 
have  lent  me  his  own  judgment.  Such  was  my 
ingratitude  and  my  readiness  at  composition  that 
even  while  he  was  speaking  I  inwardly  sketched 
a  Last  Judgment  with  that  candid  friend's  phys- 
iognomy on  the  left.  But  all  this  is  away  from 
Sir  Hugo,  whose  manner  of  implying  that  one's 
gifts  are  not  of  the  highest  order  is  so  exceeding- 
ly good-natured  and  comfortable  that  I  begin  to 
feel  it  an  advantage  riot  to  be  among  those  poor 
fellows  at  the  tiptop.  And  his  kindness  to  me 
tastes  all  the  better  because  it  comes  out  of  his 
love  for  you,  old  boy.  His  chat  is  uncommonly 
amusing.  By-the-way,  he  told  me  that  your  Van- 
dyck  duchess  is  gone  with  her  husband  yachting 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND   THE  SON. 


219 


to  the  Mediterranean.  I  bethink  me  that  it  is 
possible  to  land  from  a  yacht,  or  to  be  taken  on 
to  a  yacht  from  the  land.  Shall  you  by  chance 
have  an  opportunity  of  continuing  your  theolog- 
ical discussion  with  the  fair  Supralapsarian — I 
think  you  said  her  tenets  were  of  that  complex- 
ion ?  Is  Duke  Alphonso  also  theological  ? — per- 
haps an  Arian  who  objects  to  triplicity.  (Stage 
direction.  While  D.  is  reading,  a  profound  scorn 
gathers  in  his  face,  till  at  the  last  word  he  flings 
down  the  letter,  grasps  his  coat  collar  in  a  statu 
esque  attitude,  and  so  remains,  with  a  look  gen- 
erally tremendous,  throughout  the  following  solil- 
oquy, '  0  night,  0  blackness,'  etc.,  etc.) 

"Excuse  the  brevity  of  this  letter.  You  are 
not  used  to  more  from  me  than  a  bare  statement 
of  facts  without  comment  or  digression.  One 
fact  I  have  omitted— that  the  Klesmers  on  the 
eve  of  departure  have  behaved  magnificently, 
shining  forth  as  might  be  expected  from  the 
planets  of  genius  and  fortune  in  conjunction. 
Mirah  is  rich  with  their  Oriental  gifts. 

"  What  luck  it  will  be  if  you  come  back  and 
present  yourself  at  the  Abbey  while  I  am  there ! 
I  am  going  to  behave  with  consummate  discre- 
tion and  win  golden  opinions.  But  I  shall  run  up 
to  town  now  and  then,  just  for  a  peep  into  Gan 
Eden.  You  see  how  far  I  have  got  in  Hebrew 
lore — up  with  my  Lord  Bolingbroke,  who  knew 
no  Hebrew,  but '  understood  that  sort  of  learning 
and  what  is  writ  about  it.'  If  Mirah  commanded, 
I  would  go  to  a  depth  below  the  triliteral  roots. 
Already  it  makes  no  difference  to  me  whether  the 
points  are  there  or  not.  But  while  her  brother's 
life  lasts  I  suspect  she  would  not  listen  to  a  lover, 
even  one  whose  '  hair  is  like  a  flock  of  goats  on 
Mount  Gilead' — and  I  flatter  myself  that  few 
heads  would  bear  that  trying  comparison  better 
than  mine.  So  I  stay  with  my  hope  among  the 
orchard  blossoms.  Your  devoted 

"HANS  MEYRICK." 

Some  months  before,  this  letter  from  Hans 
would  have  divided  Deronda's  thoughts  irritating- 
ly :  its  romancing  about  Mirah  would  have  had 
an  unpleasant  edge,  scarcely  anointed  with  any 
commiseration  for  his  friend's  probable  disap- 
pointment. But  things  had  altered  since  March. 
Mirah  was  no  longer  so  critically  placed  with  re- 
gard to  the  Meyricks,  and  Deronda's  own  posi- 
tion had  been  undergoing  a  change  which  had 
just  been  crowned  by  the  revelation  of  his  birth. 
The  new  opening  toward  the  future,  though  he 
would  not  trust  in  any  definite  visions,  inevitably 
shed  new  lights,  and  influenced  his  mood  toward 
past  and  present ;  hence,  what  Hans  called  his 
hope  now  seemed  to  Deronda  not  a  mischievous 
unreasonableness  which  roused  his  indignation, 
but  an  unusually  persistent  bird-dance  of  an  ex- 
travagant fancy,  and  he  would  have  felt  quite  able 
to  pity  any  consequent  suffering  of  his  friend's  if 
he  had  believed  in  the  suffering  as  probable.  But 
some  of  the  busy  thought  filling  that  long  day, 
which  passed  without  his  receiving  any  new  sum- 
mons from  his  mother,  was  given  to  the  argument 
that  Hans  Meyrick's  nature  was  not  one  in  which 
love  could  strike  the  deep  roots  that  turn  disap- 
pointment into  sorrow :  it  was  too  restless,  too 
readily  excitable  by  novelty,  too  ready  to  turn 
itself  into  imaginative  material,  and  wear  its  grief 
as  a  fantastic  costume.  "  Already  he  is  beginning 
to  play  at  love ;  he  is  taking  the  whole  affair  as 


a  comedy,"  said  Deronda  to  himself ;  "  he  knows 
very  well  that  there  is  no  chance  for  him.  Just 
like  him — never  opening  his  eyes  on  any  possible 
objection  I  could  have  to  receive  his  outpourings 
about  Mirah.  Poor  old  Hans !  If  we  were  under 
a  fiery  hail  together,  he  would  howl  like  a  Greek, 
and  if  I  did  not  howl  too,  it  would  never  occur  to 
him  that  I  was  as  badly  off  as  he.  And  yet  he  is 
tender-hearted  and  affectionate  in  intention,  and 
I  can't  say  that  he  is  not  active  in  imagining  what 
goes  on  in  other  people  ;  but  then  he  always  im- 
agines it  to  fit  his  own  inclination." 

With  this  touch  of  causticity  Deronda  got  rid 
of  the  slight  heat  at  present  raised  by  Hans's 
naive  expansiveness.  The  nonsense  about  Gwen- 
dolen, conveying  the  fact  that  she  was  gone  yacht- 
ing with  her  husband,  only  suggested  a  disturb- 
ing sequel  to  his  own  strange  parting  with  her. 
But  there  was  one  sentence  in  the  letter  which 
raised  a  more  immediate,  active  anxiety.  Hans's 
suspicion  of  a  hidden  sadness  in  Mirah  was  not 
in  the  direction  of  his  wishes,  and  hence,  in- 
stead of  distrusting  his  observation  here,  Deron- 
da began  to  conceive  a  cause  for  the  sadness. 
Was  it  some  event  that  had  occurred  during  his 
absence,  or  only  the  growing  fear  of  some  event  ? 
Was  it  something,  perhaps  alterable,  in  the  new 
position  which  had  been  made  for  her  ?  Or — had 
Mordecai,  against  his  habitual  resolve,  communi- 
cated to  her  those  peculiar  cherished  hopes  about 
him,  Deronda,  and  had  her  quickly  sensitive  na- 
ture been  hurt  by  the  discovery  that  her  brother's 
will  or  tenacity  of  visionary  conviction  had  acted 
coercively  on  their  friendship — been  hurt  by  the 
fear  that  there  was  more  of  pitying  self-suppres- 
sion than  of  equal  regard  in  Deronda's  relation  to 
him  ?  For  amidst  all  Mirah's  quiet  renunciation, 
the  evident  thirst  of  soul  with  which  she  received 
the  tribute  of  equality  implied  a  corresponding 
pain  if  she  found  that  what  she  had  taken  for  a 
purely  reverential  regard  toward  her  brother  had 
its  mixture  of  condescension. 

In  this  last  conjecture  of  Deronda's  he  was  not 
wrong  as  to  the  quality  in  Mirah's  nature  on  which 
he  was  founding — the  latent  protest  against  the 
treatment  she  had  all  her  life  been  subject  to  un- 
til she  met  him.  For  that  gratitude  which  would 
not  let  her  pass  by  any  notice  of  their  acquaint- 
ance without  insisting  on  the  depth  of  her  debt  to 
him,  took  half  its  fervor  from  the  keen  compari- 
son with  what  others  had  thought  enough  to  ren- 
der to  her.  Deronda's  affinity  in  feeling  enabled 
him  to  penetrate  such  secrets.  But  he  was  not 
near  the  truth  in  admitting  the  idea  that  Mordecai 
had  broken  his  characteristic  reticence.  To  no 
soul  but  Deronda  himself  had  he  yet  breathed  the 
history  of  their  relation  to  each  other,  or  his  con- 
fidence about  his  friend's  origin :  it  was  not  only 
that  these  subjects  were  for  him  too  sacred  to  be 
spoken  of  without  weighty  reason,  but  that  he 
had  discerned  Deronda's  shrinking  at  any  men- 
tion of  his  birth;  and  the  severity  of  reserve 
which  had  hindered  Mordecai  from  answering  a 
question  on  a  private  affair  of  the  Cohen  family 
told  yet  more  strongly  here. 

"  Ezra,  how  is  it  V"  Mirah  one  day  said  to  him 
— "  I  am  continually  going  to  speak  to  Mr.  De- 
ronda as  if  he  were  a  Jew  ?" 

He  smiled  at  her  quietly,  and  said,  "  I  suppose 
it  is  because  he  treats  us  as  if  he  were  our  broth- 
er. But  he  loves  not  to  have  the  difference  of 
birth  dwelt  upon." 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"  He  has  never  lived  with  his  parents,  Mr.  Hans 
says,"  continued  Mirah,  to  whom  this  was  neces- 
sarily a  question  of  interest  about  every  one  for 
whom  she  had  a  regard. 

"Seek  not  to  know  such  things  from  Mr.  Hans," 
said  Mordecai,  gravely,  laying  his  hand  on  her 
curls,  as  he  was  wont.  "  What  Daniel  Deronda 
wishes  us  to  know  about  himself  is  for  him  to 
tell  us."  i 

And  Mirah  felt  herself  rebuked,  as  Deronda 
had  done.  But  to  be  rebuked  in  this  way  by 
Mordecai  made  her  rather  proud. 

"  I  see  no  one  so  great  as  my  brother,"  she  said 
to  Mrs.  Meyrick  one  day  that  she  called  at  the 
Chelsea  house  on  her  way  home,  and,  according 
to  her  hope,  found  the  little  mother  alone.  "  It 
is  difficult  to  think  that  he  belongs  to  the  same 
world  as  those  people  I  used  to  live  among.  I 
told  you  once  that  they  made  life  seem  like  a 
mad-house ;  but  when  I  am  with  Ezra  he  makes 
me  feel  that  his  life  is  a  great  good,  though  he 
has  suffered  so  much ;  not  like  me,  who  wanted 
to  die  because  I  had  suffered  a  little,  and  only  for 
a  little  while.  His  soul  is  so  full,  it  is  impossible 
for  him  to  wish  for  death  as  I  did.  I  get  the 
same  sort  of  feeling  from  him  that  I  got  yester- 
day, when  I  was  tired,  and  came  home  through 
the  park  after  the  sweet  rain  had  fallen  and  the 
sunshine  lay  on  the  grass  and  flowers.  Every 
thing  in  the  sky  and  under  the  sky  looked  so  pure 
and  beautiful  that  the  weariness  and  trouble  and 
folly  seemed  only  a  small  part  of  what  is,  and  I 
became  more  patient  and  hopeful." 

A  dove-like  note  of  melancholy  in  this  speech 
caused  Mrs.  Meyrick  to  look  at  Mirah  with  new 
examination.  After  laying  down  her  hat  and 
pushing  her  curls  flat,  with  an  air  of  fatigue,  she 
had  placed  herself  on  a  chair  opposite  her  friend 
in  her  habitual  attitude,  her  feet  and  hands  just 
crossed :  and  at  a  distance  she  might  have  seem- 
ed a  colored  statue  of  serenity.  But  Mrs.  Meyrick 
discerned  a  new  look  of  suppressed  suffering  in 
her  face,  which  corresponded  to  the  hint  that  to 
be  patient  and  hopeful  required  some  extra  influ- 
ence. 

"  Is  there  any  fresh  trouble  on  your  mind,  my 
dear  ?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  giving  up  her  needle- 
work as  a  sign  of  concentrated  attention. 

Mirah  hesitated  before  she  said,  "I  am  too 
ready  to  speak  of  troubles,  I  think.  It  seems  un- 
kind to  put  any  thing  painful  into  other  people's 
minds,  unless  one  were  sure  it  would  hinder  some- 
thing worse.  And  perhaps  I  am  too  hasty  and 
fearful." 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  mothers  are  made  to  like  pain 
and  trouble  for  the  sake  of  their  children.  Is  it 
because  the  singing  lessons  are  so  few,  and  are 
likely  to  fall  off  when  the  season  comes  to  an 
end  ?  Success  in  these  things  can't  come  all  at 
once."  Mrs.  Meyrick  did  not  believe  that  she 
was  touching  the  real  grief;  but  a  guess  that 
could  be  corrected  would  make  an  easier  channel 
for  confidence. 

"  No,  not  that,"  said  Mirah,  shaking  her  head 
gently.  "I  have  been  a  little  disappointed  be- 
cause so  many  ladies  said  they  wanted  me  to  give 
them  or  their  daughters  lessons,  and  then  I  never 
heard  of  them  again.  But  perhaps  after  the  hol- 
idays I  shall  teach  in  some  schools.  Besides,  you 
know,  I  am  as  rich  as  a  princess  now.  I  have 
not  touched  the  hundred  pounds  that  Mrs.  Kles- 
mer  gave  me ;  and  I  should  never  be  afraid  that 


Ezra  would  be  in  want  of  any  thing,  because 
there  is  Mr.  Deronda,  and  he  said, '  It  is  the  chief 
honor  of  my  life  that  your  brother  will  share  any 
thing  with  me.'  Oh  no !  Ezra  and  I  can  have  no 
fears  for  each  other  about  such  things  as  food 
and  clothing." 

"  But  there  is  some  other  fear  on  your  mind," 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  not  without  divination — "a 
fear  of  something  that  may  disturb  your  peace  ? 
Don't  be  forecasting  evil,  dear  child,  unless  it  is 
what  you  can  guard  against.  Anxiety  is  good  for 
nothing  if  we  can't  turn  it  into  a  defense.  But 
there's  no  defense  against  all  the  things  that 
might  be.  Have  you  any  more  reason  for  being 
anxious  now  than  you  had  a  month  ago  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  have,"  said  Mirah.  "  I  have  kept  it 
from  Ezra.  I  have  not  dared  to  tell  him.  Pray 
forgive  me  that  I  can't  do  without  telling  you.  I 
have  more  reason  for  being  anxious.  It  is  five 
days  ago  now.  I  am  quite  sure  I  saw  my  father." 

Mrs.  Meyrick  shrank  into  smaller  space,  pack- 
ing her  arms  across  her  chest  and  leaning  forward 
— to  hinder  herself  from  pelting  that  father  with 
her  worst  epithets. 

"  The  year  has  changed  him,"  Mirah  went  on. 
"  He  had  already  been  much  altered  and  worn  in 
the  time  before  I  left  him.  You  remember  I  said 
how  he  used  sometimes  to  cry.  He  was  always 
excited  one  way  or  the  other."  I  have  told  Ezra 
every  thing  that  I  told  you,  and  he  says  that  my 
father  had  taken  to  gambling,  which  makes  peo- 
ple easily  distressed,  and  then  again  exalted.  And 
now — it  was  only  a  moment  that  I  saw  him — his 
face  was  more  haggard,  and  his  clothes  were  shab- 
by. He  was  with  a  much  worse-looking  man, 
who  carried  something,  and  they  were  hurrying 
along  after  an  omnibus." 

"  Well,  child,  he  did  not  see  you,  I  hope?" 

"  No.  I  had  just  come  from  Mrs.  Raymond's, 
and  I  was  waiting  to  cross  near  the  Marble  Arch. 
Soon  he  was  on  the  omnibus  and  gone  out  of 
sight.  It  was  a  dreadful  moment.  My  old  life 
seemed  to  have  come  back  again,  and  it  was  worse 
than  it  had  ever  been  before.  And  I  could  not 
help  feeling  it  a  new  deliverance  that  he  was  gone 
out  of  sight  without  knowing  that  I  was  there. 
And  yet  it  hurt  me  that  I  was  feeling  so — it 
seemed  hateful  in  me — almost  like  words  I  once 
had  to  speak  in  a  play,  that  '  I  had  warmed  my 
hands  in  the  blood  of  my  kindred.'  For  where 
might  my  father  be  going  ?  What  may  become 
of  him  ?  And  his  having  a  daughter  who  would 
own  him  in  spite  of  all  might  have  hindered  the 
worst.  Is  there  any  pain  like  seeing  what  ought 
to  be  the  best  things  in  life  turned  into  the  worst  ? 
All  those  opposite  feelings  were  meeting  and 
pressing  against  each  other,  and  took  up  all  my 
strength.  No  one  could  act  that.  Acting  is  slow 
and  poor  to  what  we  go  through  within.  I  don't 
know  how  I  called  a  cab.  I  only  remember  that 
I  was  in  it  when  I  began  to  think, '  I  can  not  tell 
Ezra ;  he  must  not  know.'  " 

"  You  are  afraid  of  grieving  him  ?"  Mrs.  Mey- 
rick asked,  when  Mirah  had  paused  a  little. 

"  Yes — and  there  is  something  more,"  said 
Mirah,  hesitatingly,  as  if  she  were  examining  her 
feeling  before  she  would  venture  to  speak  of  it. 
"I  want  to  tell  you;  I  could  not  tell  any  one 
else.  I  could  not  have  told  my  own  mother ;  I 
should  have  closed  it  up  before  her.  I  feel  shame 
for  my  father,  and  it  is  perhaps  strange — but 
the  ehame  is  greater  before  Ezra  than  before  any 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND   THE   SOX. 


221 


one  else  in  the  world.  He  desired  me  t»tell  him 
all  about  my  life,  and  I  obeyed  him.  But  it  is 
always  like  a  smart  to  me  to  know  that  those 
things  about  my  father  are  in  Ezra's  mind.  And 
— can  you  believe  it  ? — when  the  thought  haunts 
me  how  it  would  be  if  my  father  were  to  come 
and  show  himself  before  us  both,  what  seems  as 
if  it  would  scorch  me  most  is  seeing  my  father 
shrinking  before  Ezra.  That  is  the  truth.  I 
don't  know  whether  it  is  a  right  feeling.  But  I 
can't  help  thinking  that  I  would  rather  try  to 
maintain  my  father  in  secret,  and  bear  a  great 
deal  in  that  way,  if  I  could  hinder  him  from 
meeting  my  brother." 

"  You  must  not  encourage  that  feeling,  Mirah," 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  hastily.  "It  would  be  very 
dangerous;  it  would  be  wrong.  You  must  not 
have  concealments  of  that  sort." 

"  But  ought  I  now  to  tell  Ezra  that  I  have  seen 
my  father  ?"  said  Mirah,  with  deprecation  in  her 
tone. 

"No,"  Mrs.  Meyrick  answered,  dubitatively. 
"I  don't  know  that  it  is  necessary  to  do  that. 
Your  father  may  go  away  with  the  birds.  It  is 
not  clear  that  he  came  after  you ;  you  may  never 
see  him  again.  And  then  your  brother  will  have 
been  spared  a  useless  anxiety.  But  promise  me 
that  if  your  father  sees  you — gets  hold  of  you  in 
any  way  again — you  will  let  us  all  know.  Promise 
me  that  solemnly,  Mirah.  I  have  a  right  to  ask  it." 

Mirah  reflected  a  little,  then  leaned  forward  to 
put  her  hands  in  Mrs.  Meyrick's,  and  said,  "  Since 
you  ask  it,  I  do  promise.  I  will  bear  this  feeling 
of  shame.  I  have  been  so  long  used  to  think 
that  I  must  bear  that  sort  of  inward  pain.  But 
the  shame  for  my  father  burns  me  more  when  I 
think  of  his  meeting  Ezra."  She  was  silent  a 
moment  or  two,  and  then  said,  in  a  new  tone  of 
yearning  compassion,  "  And  we  are  his  children — 
and  he  was  once  young  like  us — and  my  mother 
loved  him.  Oh !  I  can  not  help  seeing  it  all  close, 
and  it  hurts  me  like  a  cruelty." 

Mirah  shed  no  tears:  the  discipline  of  her 
whole  life  had  been  against  indulgence  in  such 
manifestation,  which  soon  falls  under  the  control 
of  strong  motives ;  but  it  seemed  that  the  more 
intense  expression  of  sorrow  had  entered  into  her 
voice.  Mrs.  Meyrick,  with  all  her  quickness  and 
loving  insight,  did  not  quite  understand  that  filial 
feeling  in  Mirah  which  had  active  roots  deep  be- 
low her  indignation  for  the  worst  offenses.  She 
could  conceive  that  a  mother  would  have  a  cling- 
ing pity  and  shame  for  a  reprobate  son,  but  she 
was  out  of  patience  with  what  she  held  an  exag- 
gerated susceptibility  on  behalf  of  this  father, 
whose  re-appearance  inclined  her  to  wish  him 
under  the  care  of  a  turnkey.  Mirah's  promise, 
however,  was  some  security  against  her  weakness. 

That  incident  was  the  only  reason  that  Mirah 
herself  could  have  stated  for  the  hidden  sadness 
which  Hans  had  divined.  Of  one  element  in  her 
changed  mood  she  could  have  given  no  definite 
account :  it  was  something  as  dim  as  the  sense 
of  approaching  weather  -  change,  and  had  ex- 
tremely slight  external  promptings,  such  as  we 
are  often  ashamed  to  find  all  we  can  allege  in 
support  of  the  busy  constructions  that  go  on 
within  us,  not  only  without  effort  but  even 
against  it,  under  the  influence  of  any  blind  emo- 
tional stirring.  Perhaps  the  first  leaven  of  un- 
easiness was  laid  by  Gwendolen's  behavior  on 
that  visit  which  was  entirely  superfluous  as  a 


means  of  engaging  Mirah  to  sing,  and  could  have 
no  other  motive  than  the  excited  and  strange 
questioning  about  Deronda.  Mirah  had  instinct- 
ively kept  the  visit  a  secret,  but  the  active  re- 
membrance of  it  had  raised  a  new  susceptibility 
in  her,  and  made  her  alive  as  she  had  never  been 
before  to  the  relations  Deronda  must  have  with 
that  society  which  she  herself  was  getting  frequent 
glimpses  of  without  belonging  to  it.  Her  peculiar 
life  and  education  had  produced  in  her  an  ex- 
traordinary mixture  of  unworldliness,  with  knowl- 
edge of  the  world's  evil,  and  even  this  knowledge 
was  a  strange  blending  of  direct  observation  with 
the  effects  of  reading  and  theatrical  study.  Her 
memory  was  furnished  with  abundant  passionate 
situation  and  intrigue,  which  she  never  made 
emotionally  her  own,  but  felt  a  repelled  aloofness 
from,  as  she  had  done  from  the  actual  life  around 
her.  Some  of  that  imaginative  knowledge  began 
now  to  weave  itself  around  Mrs.  Grandoourt ;  and 
though  Mirah  would  admit  no  position  likely  to 
affect  her  reverence  for  Deronda,  she  could  not 
avoid  a  new  painfully  vivid  association  of  his 
general  life  with  a  world  away  from  her  own, 
where  there  might  be  some  involvement  of  his 
feeling  and  action  with  a  woman  like  Gwendolen, 
who  was  increasingly  repugnant  to  her — increas- 
ingly, even  after  she  had  ceased  to  see  her ;  for 
liking  and  disliking  can  grow  in  meditation  as 
fast  as  in  the  more  immediate  kind  of  presence. 
Any  disquietude  consciously  due  to  the  idea  that 
Deronda's  deepest  care  might  be  for  something 
remote  not  only  from  herself  but  even  from  his 
friendship  for  her  brother,  she  would  have  check- 
ed with  rebuking  questions :  What  was  she  but 
one  who  had  shared  his  generous  kindness  with 
many  others  ?  and  his  attachment  to  her  brother, 
was  it  not  begun  late  to  be  soon  ended  ?  Other 
ties  had  come  before,  and  others  would  remain 
after  this  had  been  cut  by  swift-coming  death. 
But  her  uneasiness  had  not  reached  that  point 
of  self-recognition  in  which  she  would  have  been 
ashamed  of  it  as  an  indirect,  presumptuous  claim 
on  Deronda's  feeling.  That  she  or  any  one  else 
should  think  of  him  as  her  possible  lover  was  a 
conception  which  had  never  entered  her  mind ; 
indeed,  it  was  equally  out  of  the  question  with 
Mrs.  Meyrick  and  the  girls,  who,  with  Mirah  her- 
self, regarded  his  intervention  in  her  life  as  some- 
thing exceptional,  and  were  so  impressed  by  his 
mission  as  her  deliverer  and  guardian  that  they 
would  have  held  it  an  offense  to  hint  at  his  hold- 
ing any  other  relation  toward  her — a  point  of 
view  which  Hans  also  had  readily  adopted.  It 
is  a  little  hard  upon  some  men  that  they  appear 
to  sink  for  us  in  becoming  lovers.  But  precisely 
to  this  innocence  of  the  Meyricks  was  owing  the 
disturbance  of  Mirah's  unconsciousness.  The 
first  occasion  could  hardly  have  been  more  triv- 
ial, but  it  prepared  her  emotive  nature  for  a  deep- 
er effect  from  what  happened  afterward. 

It  was  when  Anna  Gascoigne,  visiting  the  Mey- 
ricks, was  led  to  speak  of  her  cousinship  with 
Gwendolen.  The  visit  had  been  arranged  that 
Anna  might  see  Mirah ;  the  three  girls  were  at 
home  with  their  mother,  and  there  was  naturally 
a  flux  of  talk  among  six  feminine  creatures,  free 
from  the  presence  of  a  distorting  male  standard. 
Anna  Gascoigne  felt  herself  much  at  home  with 
the  Meyrick  girls,  who  knew  what  it  was  to  have 
a  brother,  and  to  be  generally  regarded  as  of  mi- 
nor importance  in  the  world ;  and  she  had  told 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Rex  that  she  thought  the  University  very  nice, 
because  brothers  made  friends  there  whose  fam- 
ilies were  not  rich  and  grand,  and  yet  (like  the 
University)  were  very  nice.  The  Meyricks  seem- 
ed to  her  almost  alarmingly  clever,  and  she  con- 
sulted them  much  on  the  best  mode  of  teaching 
Lotta,  confiding  to  them  that  she  herself  was  the 
least  clever  of  her  family.  Mirah  had  lately  come 
in,  and  there  was  a  complete  bouquet  of  young 
faces  round  the  tea-table — Hafiz,  seated  a  little 
aloft,  with  large  eyes  on  the  alert,  regarding  the 
whole  scene  as  an  apparatus  for  supplying  his 
allowance  of  milk. 

"Think  of  our  surprise,  Mirah,"  said  Kate. 
"We  were  speaking  of  Mr.  Deronda  and  the 
Mallingers,  and  it  turns  out  that  Miss  Gascoigne 
knows  them." 

"  I  only  know  about  them,"  said  Anna,  a  little 
flushed  with  excitement,  what  she  had  heard  and 
now  saw  of  the  lovely  Jewess  being  an  almost 
startling  novelty  to  her.  "  I  have  not  even  seen 
them.  But  some  months  ago  my  cousin  married 
Sir  Hugo  Mallinger's  nephew,  Mr.  Grandcourt, 
who  lived  in  Sir  Hugo's  place  at  Diplow,  near  us." 

"  There  !"  exclaimed  Mab,  clasping  her  hands. 
"Something  must  come  of  that.  Mrs.  Grand- 
court,  the  Vandyck  duchess,  is  your  cousin  ?" 

"  Oh  yes  ;  I  was  her  bride-maid,"  said  Anna. 
"Her  mamma  and  mine  are  sisters.  My  aunt 
was  much  richer  before  last  year,  but  then  she 
and  mamma  lost  all  their  fortune.  Papa  is  a 
clergyman,  you  know ;  so  it  makes  very  little  dif- 
ference to  us,  except  that  we  keep  no  carriage, 
and  have  no  dinner  parties — and  I  like  it  better. 
But  it  was  very  sad  for  poor  Aunt  Davilow,  for 
she  could  not  live  with  us,  because  she  has  four 
daughters  besides  Gwendolen ;  but  then,  when 
she  married  Mr.  Grandcourt,  it  did  not  signify  so 
much,  because  of  his  being  so  rich." 

"  Oh,  this  finding  out  relationships  is  delight- 
ful !"  said  Mab.  "  It  is  like  a  Chinese  puzzle 
that  one  has  to  fit  together.  I  feel  sure  some- 
thing wonderful  may  be  made  of  it,  but  I  can't 
tell  what." 

"Dear  me,  Mab,"  said  Amy,  "relationships 
must  branch  out.  The  only  difference  is  that  we 
happen  to  know  some  of  the  people  concerned. 
Such  things  are  going  on  every  day." 

"And  pray,  Amy,  why  do  you  insist  on  the 
number  nine  being  so  wonderful?"  said  Mab. 
"  I  am  sure  that  is  happening  every  day.  Never 
mind,  Miss  Gascoigne ;  please  go  on.  And  Mr. 
Deronda? — have  you  never  seen  Mr.  Deronda? 
You  must  bring  him  in." 

"  No,  I  have  not  seen  him,"  said  Anna ;  "  but  he 
was  at  Diplow  before  my  cousin  was  married,  and 
I  have  heard  my  aunt  speaking  of  him  to  papa. 
She  said  what  you  have  been  saying  about  him — 
only  not  so  much :  I  mean,  about  Mr.  Deronda 
living  with  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger,  and  being  so  nice, 
she  thought.  We  talk  a  great  deal  about  every 
one  who  comes  near  Pennicote,  because  it  is  so 
seldom  there  is  any  one  new.  But  I  remember, 
when  I  asked  Gwendolen  what  she  thought  of  Mr. 
Deronda,  she  said, '  Don't  mention  it,  Anna ;  but 
I  think  his  hair  is  dark.'  That  was  her  droll  way 
of  answering;  she  was  always  so  lively.  It  is 
really  rather  wonderful  that  I  should  come  to 
hear  so  much  about  him,  all  through  Mr.  Hans 
knowing  Rex,  and  then  my  having  the  pleasure 
of  knowing  you,"  Anna  ended,  looking  at  Mrs. 
Meyrick  with  a  shy  grace. 


"  The- pleasure  is  on  our  side  too ;  but  the  won- 
der would  have  been,  if  you  had  come  to  this 
house  without  hearing  of  Mr.  Deronda — wouldn't 
it,  Mirah  ?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick. 

Mirah  smiled  acquiescently,  but  had  nothing 
to  say.  A  confused  discontent  took  possession 
of  her  at  the  mingling  of  names  and  images  to 
which  she  had  been  listening. 

"  My  son  calls  Mrs.  Grandcourt  the  Vandyck 
duchess,"  continued  Mrs.  Meyrick,  turning  again 
to  Anna;  "he  thinks  her  so  striking  and  pic- 
turesque." 

"  Yes,"  said  Anna.  "  Gwendolen  was  always 
so  beautiful — people  fell  dreadfully  in  love  with 
her.  I  thought  it  a  pity,  because  it  made  them 
unhappy." 

"And  how  do  you  like  Mr.  Grandcourt,  the 
happy  lover  ?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  who,  in  her  way, 
was  as  much  interested  as  Mab  in  the  hints  she 
had  been  hearing  of  vicissitude  in  the  life  of  a 
widow  with  daughters. 

"Papa  approved  of  Gwendolen's  accepting  him, 
and  my  aunt  says  he  is  very  generous,"  said  Anna, 
beginning  with  a  virtuous  intention  of  repressing 
her  own  sentiments ;  but  then,  unable  to  resist  a 
rare  occasion  for  speaking  them  freely,  she  went 
on,  "  else  I  should  have  thought  he  was  not  very 
nice — rather  proud,  and  not  at  all  lively,  like 
Gwendolen.  I  should  have  thought  some  one 
younger  and  more  lively  would  have  suited  her 
better.  But  perhaps  having  a  brother  who  seems 
to  us  better  than  any  one  makes  us  think  worse 
of  others." 

"Wait  till  you  see  Mr.  Deronda,"  said  Mab, 
nodding  significantly.  "  Nobody's  brother  will  do 
after  him." 

"  Our  brothers  mmt  do  for  people's  husbands," 
said  Kate,  curtly,  "  because  they  will  not  get  Mr. 
Deronda.  No  woman  will  do  for  him  to  marry.'' 

"No  woman  ought  to  want  him  to  marry  him,'' 
said  Mab,  with  indignation.  "  /  never  should. 
Fancy  finding  out  that  he  had  a  tailor's  bill,  and 
used  boot-hooks,  like  Hans.  Who  ever  thought 
of  his  marrying  ?" 

"  I  have,"  said  Kate.  "  When  I  drew  a  wed- 
ding for  a  frontispiece  to  Hearts  and  Diamonds,  I 
made  a  sort  of  likeness  of  him  for  the  bridegroom, 
and  I  went  about  looking  for  a  grand  woman 
who  would  do  for  his  countess,  but  I  saw  none  that 
would  not  be  poor  creatures  by  the  side  of  him." 

"  You  should  have  seen  this  Mrs.  Grandcourt, 
then,"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick.  "  Hans  says  that  she 
and  Mr.  Deronda  set  each  other  off  when  they  are 
side  by  side.  She  is  tall  and  fair.  But  you  know 
her,  Mirah--you  can  always  say  something  de- 
scriptive. What  do  you  think  of  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  *" 

"I  think  she  is  like  the  Princess  of  Eboli  in 
Don  Carlos,"  said  Mirah,  with  a  quick  intensity. 
She  was  pursuing  an  association  in  her  own  mind 
not  intelligible  to  her  hearers — an  association 
with  a  certain  actress  as  well  as  the  part  she 
represented. 

"  Your  comparison  is  a  riddle  for  me,  my  dear," 
said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  smiling. 

"  You  said  that  Mrs.  Grandcourt  was  tall  and 
fair,"  continued  Mirah,  slightly  paler.  "  That  is 
quite  true." 

Mrs.  Meyrick's  quick  eye  and  ear  detected 
something  unusual,  but  immediately  explained  it 
to  herself.  Fine  ladies  had  often  wounded  Mirah 
by  caprices  of  manner  and  intention. 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND  THE  SOX. 


"  Mrs.  Grandcourt  had  thought  of  having  les- 
sons from  Mirah,"  she  said,  turning  to  Anna. 
"But  many  have  talked  of  having  lessons,  and 
then  have  found  no  time.  Fashionable  ladies 
have  too  much  work  to  do." 

And  the  chat  went  on  without  further  insist- 
ence on  the  Princess  of  Eboli.  That  comparison 
escaped  Mirah's  lips  under  the  urgency  of  a  pang 
unlike  any  thing  she  had  felt  before.  The  con- 
versation from  the  beginning  had  revived  unpleas- 
ant impressions,  and  Mrs.  Meyrick's  suggestion 
of  Gwendolen's  figure  by  the  side  of  Deronda's 
had  the  stinging  effect  of  a  voice  outside  her, 
confirming  her  secret  conviction  that  this  tall  and 
fair  woman  had  some  hold  on  his  lot.  For  a  long 
while  afterward  she  felt  as  if  she  had  had  a  jar- 
ring shock  through  her  frame. 

In  the  evening,  putting  her  cheek  against  her 
brother's  shoulder  as  she  was  sitting  by  him, 
while  he  sat  propped  up  in  bed  under  a  new  dif- 
ficulty of  breathing,  she  said, 

"  Ezra,  does  it  ever  hurt  your  love  for  Mr.  De- 
rond'a  that  so  much  of  his  life  was  all  hidden 
away  from  you — that  he  is  among  persons  and 
cares  about  persons  who  are  all  so  unlike  us — I 
mean,  unlike  you  ?" 

"  No,  assuredly  no,"  said  Mordecai.  "  Rather, 
it  is  a  precious  thought  to  me  that  he  has  a  prep- 
aration which  I  lacked,  and  is  an  accomplished 
Egyptian."  Then,  recollecting  that  his  words  had 
a  reference  which  his  sister  must  not  yet  under- 
stand, he  added,  "  I  have  the  more  to  give  him, 
since  his  treasure  differs  from  mine.  That  is  a 
blessedness  in  friendship." 

Mirah  mused  a  little. 

"  Still,"  she  said,  "  it  would  be  a  trial  to  your 
love  for  him  if  that  other  part  of  his  life  were 
like  a  crowd  in  which  he  had  got  entangled,  so 
that  he  was  carried  away  from  you — I  mean  in 
his  thoughts,  and  not  merely  carried  out  of  sight 
as  he  is  now — and  not  merely  for  a  little  while, 
but  continually.  How  should  you  bear  that  ?  Our 
religion  commands  us  to  bear.  But  how  should 
you  bear  it  ?" 

"Not  well,  my  sister — not  well ;  but  it  will  nev- 
er happen,"  said  Mordecai,  looking  at  her  with  a 
tender  smile.  He  thought  that  her  heart  needed 
comfort  on  his  account. 

Mirah  said  no  more.  She  mused  over  the  dif- 
ference between  her  own  state  of  mind  and  her 
brother's,  and  felt  her  comparative  pettiness. 
Why  could  she  not  be  completely  satisfied  with 
what  satisfied  his  larger  judgment?  'She  gave 
herself  no  fuller  reason  than  a  painful  sense  of 
unfitness — in  what  ?  Airy  possibilities  to  which 
she  could  give  no  outline,  but  to  which  one  name 
and  one  figure  gave  the  wandering  persistency  of 
a  blot  in  her  vision.  Here  lay  the  vaguer  source 
of  the  hidden  sadness  rendered  noticeable  to  Hans 
by  some  diminution  of  that  sweet  ease,  that  ready 
joyousness  of  response  in  her  speech  and  smile, 
which  had  come  with  the  new  sense  of  freedom 
and  safety,  and  had  made  her  presence  like  the 
freshly  opened  daisies  and  clear  bird-notes  after 
the  rain.  She  herself  regarded  her  uneasiness  as 
a  sort  of  ingratitude  and  dullness  of  sensibility 
toward  the  great  things  that  had  been  given  her 
in  her  new  life ;  and  whenever  she  threw  more 
energy  than  usual  into  her  singing,  it  was  the  en- 
ergy of  indignation  against  the  shallowness  of 
her  own  content.  In  that  mood  she  once  said : 
"Shall  I  tell  vou  what  is  the  difference  between 


you  and  me,  Ezra?  You  are  a  spring  in  the 
drought,  and  I  am  an  acorn  cup ;  the  waters  of 
heaven  fill  me,  but  the  least  little  shake  leaves 
me  empty." 

"  Why,  what  has  shaken  thee  ?"  said  Mordecai. 
He  fell  "into  this  antique  form  of  speech  habit- 
ually in  talking  to  his  sister  and  to  the  Cohen 
children. 

"  Thoughts,"  said  Mirah ;  "  thoughts  that  come 
like  the  breeze  and  shake  me — bad  people,  wrong 
things,  misery — and  how  they  might  touch  our 
life." 

"  We  must  take  our  portion,  Mirah.  It  is  there. 
On  whose  shoulder  would  we  lay  it,  that  we  might 
be  free?" 

The  one  voluntary  sign  that  she  made  of  her 
inward  care  was  this  distant  allusion. 


CHAPTER  LIII. 

"My  desolation  does  begin  to  make 
A  better  life." 

— SHAKSPEAEE:  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 

BEFORE  Deronda  was  summoned  to  a  second 
interview  with  his  mother,  a  day  had  passed  in 
which  she  had  only  sent  him  a  message  to  say 
that  she  was  not  yet  well  enough  to  receive  him 
again ;  but  on  the  third  morning  he  had  a  note 
saying,  "I  leave  to-day.  Come  and  see  me  at 
once." 

He  was  shown  into  the  same  room  as  before ; 
but  it  was  much  darkened  with  blinds  and  cur- 
tains. The  Princess  was  not  there,  but  she  pres- 
ently entered,  dressed  in  a  loose  wrap  of  some 
soft  silk,  in  color  a  dusky  orange,  her  head  again 
with  black  lace  floating  about  it,  her  arms  show- 
ing themselves  bare  from  under  her  wide  sleeves. 
Her  face  seemed  even  more  impressive  in  the 
sombre  light,  the  eyes  larger,  the  lines  more  vig- 
orous. You  might  have  imagined  her  a  sorceress 
who  would  stretch  forth  her  wonderful  hand  and 
arm  to  mix  youth  potions  for  others,  but  scorned 
to  mix  them  for  herself,  having  had  enough  of 
youth. 

She  put  her  arms  on  her  son's  shoulders  at 
once,  and  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks,  then  seated 
herself  among  her  cushions  with  an  air  of  assured 
firmness  and  dignity,  unlike  her  fitfulness  in  their 
first  interview,  and  told  Deronda  to  sit  down  by 
her.  He  obeyed,  saying,  "  You  are  quite  relieved 
now,  I  trust  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  am  at  ease  again.  Is  there  any  thing 
more  that  you  would  like  to  ask  me  ?"  she  said, 
with  the  manner  of  a  queen  rather  than  of  a 
mother. 

"Can  I  find  the  house  in  Genoa  where  you 
used  to  live  with  my  grandfather  ?"  said  Deronda. 

"No,"  she  answered,  with  a  deprecating  move- 
ment of  her  arm ;  "  it  is  pulled  down — not  to  be 
found.  But  about  our  family,  and  where  my  fa- 
ther lived  at  various  times — you  will  find  all  that 
among  the  papers  in  the  chest  better  than  I  can 
tell  you.  My  father,  I  told  you,  was  a  physician. 
My  mother  was  a  Morteira."  I  used  to  hear  all 
those  things  without  listening.  You  will  find 
them  all.  I  was  born  among  them  without  my 
will.  I  banished  them  as  soon  as  I  could." 

Deronda  tried  to  hide  his  pained  feeling,  and 
said,  "Any  thing  else  that  I  should  desire  to 
know  from  you  could  only  be  what  it  is  some 
satisfaction  to  your  own  feeling  to  tell  me." 


224 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


"  I  think  I  have  told  you  every  thing  that  could 
be  demanded  of  me,"  said  the  Princess,  looking 
coldly  meditative.  It  seemed  as  if  she  had  ex- 
hausted her  emotion  in  their  former  interview. 
The  fact  was,  she  had  said  to  herself,  "  I  have 
done  it  all.  I  have  confessed  all.  I  will  not  go 
through  it  again.  I  will  save  myself  from  agita- 
tion." And  she  was  acting  out  that  theme. 

But  to  Deronda's  nature  the  moment  was  cruel : 
it  made  the  filial  yearning  of  his  life  a  disap- 
pointed pilgrimage  to  a  shrine  where  there  were 
no  longer  the  symbols  of  sacredness.  It  seemed 
that  all  the  woman  lacking  in  her  was  present  in 
him  as  he  said,  with  some  tremor  in  his  voice, 

"  Then  are  we  to  part,  and  I  never  be  any  thing 
to  you  ?" 

"  It  is  better  so,"  said  the  Princess,  in  a  softer, 
mellower  voice.  "  There  could  be  nothing  but 
hard  duty  for  you,  even  if  it  were  possible  for  you 
to  take  the  place  of  my  son.  You  would  not  love 
me.  Don't  deny  it,"  she  said,  abruptly,  putting 
up  her  hand.  "  I  know  what  is  the  truth.  You 
don't  like  what  I  did.  You  are  angry  with  me. 
You  think  I  robbed  you  of  something.  You  are 
on  your  grandfather's  side,  and  you  will  always 
have  a  condemnation  of  me  in  your  heart." 

Deronda  felt  himself  under  a  ban  of  silence. 
He  rose  from  his  seat  by  her,  preferring  to  stand, 
if  he  had  to  obey  that  imperious  prohibition  of  any 
tenderness.  But  his  mother  now  looked  up  at  him 
with  a  new  admiration  in  her  glance,  saying, 

"  You  are  wrong  to  be  angry  with  me.  You 
are  the  better  for  what  I  did."  After  pausing  a 
little,  she  added,  abruptly,  "And  now  tell  me 
what  you  shall  do." 

"Do  you  mean  now,  immediately,"  said  De- 
ronda, "  or  as  to  the  course  of  my  future  life  ?" 

"  I  mean  in  the  future.  What  difference  will  it 
make  to  you  that  I  have  told  you  about  your  birth  ?" 

"A  very  great  difference,"  said  Deronda,  em- 
phatically. "I  can  hardly  think  of  any  thing 
that  would  make  a  greater  difference." 

"  What  shall  you  do,  then  ?"  said  the  Princess, 
with  more  sharpness.  "Make  yourself  just  like 
your  grandfather — be  what  he  wished  you — turn 
yourself  into  a  Jew  like  him  ?" 

"  That  is  impossible.  The  effect  of  my  educa- 
tion can  never  be  done  away  with.  The  Chris- 
tian sympathies  in  which  my  mind  was  reared 
can  never  die  out  of  me,"  said  Deronda,  with  in- 
creasing tenacity  of  tone.  "  But  I  consider  it  my 
duty — it  is  the  impulse  of  my  feeling — to  identify 
myself,  as  far  as  possible,  with  my  hereditary  peo- 
ple, and  if  I  can  see  any  work  to  be  done  for  them 
that  I  can  give  my  soul  and  hand  to,  I  shall  choose 
to  do  it." 

His  mother  had  her  eyes  fixed  on  him  with  a 
wondering  speculation,  examining  his  face  as  if 
she  thought  that  by  close  attention  she  could  read 
a  difficult  language  there.  He  bore  her  gaze  very 
firmly,  sustained  by  a  resolute  opposition,  which 
was  the  expression  of  his  fullest  self.  She  bent 
toward  him  a  little,  and  said,  with  a  decisive  em- 
phasis, 

"  You  are  in  love  with  a  Jewess." 

Deronda  colored,  and  said,  "  My  reasons  would 
be  independent  of  any  such  fact." 

"  I  know  better.  I  have  seen  what  men  are," 
said  the  Princess,  peremptorily.  "Tell  me  the 
truth.  She  is  a  Jewess  who  will  not  accept  any 
one  but  a  Jew.  There  are  a  few  such,"  she  add- 
ed, with  a  touch  of  scorn. 


Deronda  had  that  objection  to  answer  which 
we  all  have  known  in  speaking  to  those  who  are 
too  certain  of  their  own  fixed  interpretations  to 
be  enlightened  by  any  thing  we  may  say.  But 
besides  this,  the  point  immediately  in  question 
was  one  on  which  he  felt  a  repugnance  either  to 
deny  or  affirm.  He  remained  silent,  and  she  pres- 
ently said, 

"  You  love  her  as  your  father  loved  me,  and 
she  draws  you  after  her  as  I  drew  him." 

Those  words  touched  Deronda's  filial  imagina- 
tion, and  some  tenderness  in  his  glance  was  taken 
by  his  mother  as  an  assent.  She  went  on  with 
rising  passion.  "  But  I  was  leading  him  the  oth- 
er way.  And  now  your  grandfather  is  getting  his 
revenge." 

"  Mother,"  said  Deronda,  remonstrantly,  "  don't 
let  us  think  of  it  in  that  way.  I  will  admit  that 
there  may  come  some  benefit  from  the  education 
you  chose  for  me.  I  prefer  cherishing  the  benefit 
with  gratitude  to  dwelling  with  resentment  on  the 
injury.  I  think  it  would  have  been  right  that  I 
should  have  been  brought  up  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  I  was  a  Jew,  but  it  must  always  have 
been  a  good  to  me  to  have  as  wide  an  instruction 
and  sympathy  as  possible.  And  now,  you  have 
restored  me  my  inheritance — events  have  brought 
a  fuller  restitution  than  you  could  have  made — 
you  have  been  saved  from  robbing  my  people  of 
my  service  and  me  of  my  duty :  can  you  not  bring 
your  whole  soul  to  consent  to  this  ?" 

Deronda  paused  in  his  pleading:  his  mother 
looked  at  him  listeningly,  as  if  the  cadence  of  his 
voice  were  taking  her  ear,  yet  she  shook  her  head 
slowly.  He  began  again  even  more  urgently : 

"  You  have  told  me  that  you  sought  what  you 
held  the  best  for  me :  open  your  heart  to  relent- 
ing and  love  toward  my  grandfather,  who  sought 
what  he  held  the  best  for  you." 

"Not  for  me,  no,"  she  said,  shaking  her  head 
with  more  absolute  denial,  and  folding  her  arms 
tightly.  "  I  tell  you,  he  never  thought  of  his 
daughter  except  as  an  instrument.  Because  I 
had  wants  outside  his  purpose,  I  was  to  be  put 
in  a  frame  and  tortured.  If  that  is  the  right  law 
for  the  world,  I  will  not  say  that  I  love  it.  If  my 
acts  were  wrong — if  it  is  God  who  is  exacting 
from  me  that  I  should  deliver  up  what  I  withheld 
— who  is  punishing  me  because  I  deceived  my 
father  and  did  not  warn  him  that  I  should  con- 
tradict his  trust — well,  I  have  told  every  thing.  I 
have  done  what  I  could.  And  your  soul  consents. 
That  is  enough.  I  have,  after  all,  been  the  instru- 
ment my  father  wanted. — 'I  desire  a  grandson 
who  shall  have  a  true  Jewish  heart.  Every  Jew 
should  rear  his  family  as  if  he  hoped  that  a  De- 
liverer might  spring  from  it.'  " 

In  uttering  these  last  sentences  the  Princess 
narrowed  her  eyes,  waved  her  head  up  and  down, 
and  spoke  slowly  with  a  new  kind  of  chest-voice, 
as  if  she  were  quoting  unwillingly. 

"  Were  those  my  grandfather's  words  ?"  said 
Deronda. 

"  Yes,  yes ;  and  you  will  find  them  written.  I 
wanted  to  thwart  him,"  said  the  Princess,  with  a 
sudden  outburst  of  the  passion  she  had  shown 
in  the  former  interview.  Then  she  added,  more 
slowly,  "You  would  have  me  love  what  I  have 
hated  from  the  time  I  was  so  high" — here  she 
held  her  left  hand  a  yard  from  the  floor.  "  That 
can  never  be.  But  what  does  it  matter  ?  His 
yoke  has  been  on  me  whether  I  loved  it  or  not. 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AND   THE   SON. 


225 


You  arc  the  grandson  he  wanted.  You  speak 
as  men  do — as  if  you  felt  yourself  wise.  What 
does  it  all  mean  ?" 

Her  tone  was  abrupt  and  scornful.  Deronda, 
in  his  pained  feeling,  and  under  the  solemn  ur- 
gency of  the  moment,  had  to  keep  a  clutching 
remembrance  of  their  relationship,  lest  his  words 
should  become  cruel.  He  began  in  a  deep,  en- 
treating tone : 

"Mother,  don't  say  that  I  feel  myself  wise. 
We  are  set  in  the  midst  of  difficulties."  I  see  no 
other  way  to  get  any  clearness  than  by  being 
truthful— not  by  keeping  back  facts  which  may 
— which  should  carry  obligation  within  them — 
which  should  make  the  only  guidance  toward 
duty.  No  wonder  if  such  facts  come  to  reveal 
themselves  in  spite  of  concealments.  The  effects 
prepared  by  generations  are  likely  to  triumph  over 
a  contrivance  which  would  bend  them  all  to  the 
satisfaction  of  self.  Your  will  was  strong,  but 
my  grandfather's  trust  which  you  accepted  and 
did  not  fulfill — what  you  call  his  yoke — is  the 
expression  of  something  stronger,  with  deeper, 
farther-spreading  roots,  knit  into  the  foundations 
of  sacredness  for  all  men.  You  renounced  me — 
you  still  banish  me — as  a  son" — there  was  an  in- 
voluntary movement  of  indignation  in  Deronda's 
voice — "  but  that  stronger  Something  has  deter- 
mined that  I  shall  be  all  the  more  the  grandson 
whom  also  you  willed  to  annihilate." 

His  mother  was  watching  him  fixedly,  and  again 
her  face  gathered  admiration.  After  a  moment's 
silence  she  said,  in  a  low  persuasive  tone, 

"  Sit  down  again,"  and  he  obeyed,  placing  him- 
self beside  her.  She  laid  her  hand  on  his  shoul- 
der and  went  on : 

"  You  rebuke  me.  Well — I  am  the  loser.  And 
you  are  angry  because  I  banish  you.  What  could 
you  do  for  me  but  weary  your  own  patience  ? 
Your  mother  is  a  shattered  woman.  My  sense 
of  life  is  little  more  than  a  sense  of  what  was — 
except  when  the  pain  is  present.  You  reproach 
me  that  I  parted  with  you.  I  had  joy  enough 
without  you  then.  Now  you  are  come  back  to 
me,  and  I  can  not  make  you  a  joy.  Have  you  the 
cursing  spirit  of  the  Jew  in  you  ?  Are  you  not 
able  to  forgive  me  ?  Shall  you  be  glad  to  think 
that  I  am  punished  because  I  was  not  a  Jewish 
mother  to  you  ?" 

"  How  can  you  ask  me  that  ?"  said  Deronda, 
remonstrantly.  "  Have  I  not  besought  you  that 
I  might  now  at  least  be  a  son  to  you  ?  My  grief 
is  that  you  have  declared  me  helpless  to  comfort 
you.  I  would  give  up  much  that  is  dear  for  the 
sake  of  soothing  your  anguish." 

"  You  shall  give  up  nothing,"  said  his  mother, 
with  the  hurry  of  agitation.  "  You  shall  be  hap- 
py. You  shall  let  me  think  of  you  as  happy.  I 
shall  have  done  you  no  harm.  You  have  no  rea- 
son to  curse  me.  You  shall  feel  for  me  as  they 
feel  for  the  dead  whom  they  say  prayers  for — you 
shall  long  that  I  may  be  freed  from  all  suffering 
— from  all  punishment.  And  I  shall  see  you  in- 
stead of  always  seeing  your  grandfather.  Is  any 
harm  come  to  him  because  the  eleven  years  went 
by  with  no  wretched  Kaddinh  said  for  him  ?  I 
can  not  tell.  If  you  think  Kaddish  will  help  me 
— say  it,  say  it.  You  will  come  between  me  and 
the  dead.  When  I  am  in  your  mind,  you  will  look 
as  you  do  now — always  as  if  you  were  a  tender 
son — always  as  if  I  had  been  a  tender  mother." 

She  seemed  resolved  that  her  agitation  should 
P 


not  conquer  her,  but  he  felt  her  hand  trembling 
on  his  shoulder.  Deep,  deep  compassion  hemmed 
in  all  words.  With  a  face  of  beseeching  he  put 
his  arm  round  her  and  pressed  her  head  tenderly 
under  his.  They  sat  so  for  some  moments.  Then 
she  lifted  her  head  again  and  rose  from  her  seat 
with  a  great  sigh,  as  if  in  that  breath  she  were 
dismissing  a  weight  of  thoughts.  Deronda,  stand- 
ing in  front  of  her,  felt  that  the  parting  was  near. 
But  one  of  her  swift  alternations  had  come  upon 
his  mother. 

"  Is  she  beautiful  ?"  she  said,  abruptly. 

"  Who  ?"  said  Deronda,  changing  color. 

"  The  woman  you  love." 

It  was  not  a  moment  for  deliberate  explana- 
tion. He  was  obliged  to  say,  "  Yes." 

"  Not  ambitious  ?" 

"No,  I  think  not." 

"  Not  one  who  must  have  a  path  of  her  own  ?" 

"  I  think  her  nature  is  not  given  to  make  great 
claims." 

"  She  is  not  like  that  ?"  said  the  Princess,  tak- 
ing from  her  wallet  a  miniature  with  jewels  round 
it,  and  holding  it  before  her  son.  It  was  her  own 
in  all  the  fire  of  youth,  and  as  Deronda  looked  at 
it  with  admiring  sadness  she  said,  "  Had  I  not  a 
rightful  claim  to  be  something  more  than  a  mere 
daughter  and  mother  ?  The  voice  and  the  genius 
matched  the  face.  Whatever  else  was  wrong, 
acknowledge  that  I  had  a  right  to  be  an  artist, 
though  my  father's  will  was  against  it.  My  na- 
ture gave  me  a  charter." 

"  I  do  acknowledge  that,"  said  Deronda,  look- 
ing from  the  miniature  to  her  face,  which  even  in 
its  worn  pallor  had  an  expression  of  living  force 
beyond  any  thing  that  the  pencil  could  show. 

"  Will  you  take  the  portrait  ?"  said  the  Princess, 
more  gently.  "  If  she  is  a  kind  woman,  teach  her 
to  think  of  me  kindly." 

"  I  shall  be  grateful  for  the  portrait,"  said  De- 
ronda ;  "  but — I  ought  to  say,  I  have  no  assurance 
that  she  whom  I  love  will  have  any  love  for  me. 
I  have  kept  silence." 

"  Who  and  what  is  she  ?"  said  the  mother. 
The  question  seemed  a  command. 

"  She  was  brought  up  as  a  singer  for  the  stage," 
said  Deronda,  with  inward  reluctance.  "  Her  fa- 
ther took  her  away  early  from  her  mother,  and 
her  life  has  been  unhappy.  She  is  very  young — 
only  twenty.  Her  father  wished  to  bring  her  up 
in  disregard — even  in  dislike — of  her  Jewish  ori- 
gin, but  she  has  clung  with  all  her  affection  to 
the  memory  of  her  mother  and  the  fellowship  of 
her  people." 

"  Ah !  like  you.  She  is  attached  to  the  Juda- 
ism she  knows  nothing  of,"  said  the  Princess, 
peremptorily.  "  That  is  poetry — fit  to  last  through 
an  opera  night.  Is  she  fond  of  her  artist's  life — 
is  her  singing  worth  any  thing?" 

"  Her  singing  is  exquisite.  But  her  voice  is 
not  suited  to  the  stage.  I  think  that  the  artist's 
life  has  been  made  repugnant  to  her." 

"  Why,  she  is  made  for  you,  then.  Sir  Hugo 
said  you  were  bitterly  against  being  a  singer,  and 
I  can  see  that  you  would  never  have  let  yourself 
be  merged  in  a  wife,  as  your  father  was." 

"  I  repeat,"  said  Deronda,  emphatically — "  I 
repeat  that  I  have  no  assurance  of  her  love  for 
me,  of  the  possibility  that  we  can  ever  be  united. 
Other  things — painful  issues — may  lie  before  me. 
I  have  always  felt  that  I  should  prepare  myself 
to  renounce,  not  cherish,  that  prospect.  But  I 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


suppose  I  might  feel  so  of  happiness  in  general. 
Whether  it  may  come  or  not,  one  should  try  and 
prepare  one's  self  to  do  without  it." 

"  Do  you  feel  in  that  way  ?"  said  his  mother, 
laying  her  hands  on  his  shoulders,  and  perusing 
his  face,  while  she  spoke  in  a  low  meditative  tone, 
pausing  between  her  sentences.  "  Poor  boy ! — 
I  wonder  how  it  would  have  been  if  I  had  kept 
you  with  me — whether  you  would  have  turned 
your  heart  to  the  old  things — against  mine — 
and  we  should  have  quarreled — your  grandfather 
would  have  been  in  you — and  you  would  have 
hampered  my  life  with  your  young  growth  from 
the  old  root." 

"  I  think  my  affection  might  have  lasted  through 
all  our  quarreling,"  said  Deronda,  saddened  more 
and  more,  "  and  that  would  not  have  hampered — 
surely  it  would  have  enriched  your  life." 

"Not  then,  not  then— I  did  not  want  it  then 
— I  might  have  been  glad  of  it  now,"  said  the 
mother,  with  a  bitter  melancholy,  "  if  I  could  have 
been  glad  of  any  thing." 

"But  you  love  your  other  children,  and  they 
love  you  ?"  said  Deronda,  anxiously. 

"  Oh  yes,"  she  answered,  as  to  a  question  about 
a  matter  of  course,  while  she  folded  her  arms 
again.  "  But,"  she  added,  in  a  deeper  tone,  "  I 
am  not  a  loving  woman.  That  is  the  truth.  It 
is  a  talent  to  love — I  lacked  it.  Others  have 
loved  me — and  I  have  acted  their  love.  I  know 
very  well  what  love  makes  of  men  and  women 
— it  is  subjection.  It  takes  another  for  a  larger 
self,  inclosing  this  one" — she  pointed  to  her  own 
bosom.  "  I  was  never  willingly  subject  to  any 
man.  Men  have  been  subject  to  me." 

"Perhaps  the  man  who  was  subject  was  the 
happier  of  the  two,"  said  Deronda — not  with  a 
smile,  but  with  a  grave,  sad  sense  of  his  mother's 
privation. 

"  Perhaps — but  I  was  happy — for  a  few  years 
I  was  happy.  If  I  had  not  been  afraid  of  defeat 
and  failure,  I  might  have  gone  on.  I  miscalcu- 
lated. What  then  ?  It  is  all  over.  Another 
life  !  Men  talk  of  '  another  life,'  as  if  it  only  be- 
gan on  the  other  side  of  the  grave.  I  have  long 
entered  on  another  life."  With  the  last  words 
she  raised  her  arms  till  they  were  bare  to  the 
elbow,  her  brow  was  contracted  in  one  deep  fold, 
her  eyes  were  closed,  her  voice  was  smothered : 
in  her  dusky  flame-colored  garment,  she  looked 
like  a  dreamed  visitant  from  some  region  of  de- 
parted mortals. 

Deronda's  feeling  was  wrought  to  a  pitch  of 
acuteness  in  which  he  was  no  longer  quite  master 
of  himself.  He  gave  an  audible  sob.  His  moth- 
er, opening  her  eyes,  and  letting  her  hands  again 
rest  on  his  shoulders,  said, 

"  Good-by,  my  son,  good-by.  We  shall  hear  no 
more  of  each  other.  Kiss  me." 

He  clasped  his  arms  round  her  neck,  and  they 
kissed  each  other. 

Deronda  did  not  know  how  he  got  out  of  the 
room.  He  felt  an  older  man.  All  his  boyish 
yearnings  and  anxieties  about  his  mother  had 
vanished.  He  had  gone  through  a  tragic  expe- 
rience which  must,  forever  solemnize  his  life,  and 
deepen  the  significance  of  the  acts  by  which  he 
bound  himself  to  others. 


CHAPTER  LIV. 


"The  unwilling  brain 

Feigns  often  what  it  would  not ;  and  we  trust 
Imagination  with  such  fantasies 
As  the  tongue  dares  not  fashion  into  words; 
Which  have  no  words,  their  horror  makes  them  dim 
To  the  mind's  eye."  — SUELLKY. 

MADONNA  PIA,  whose  husband,  feeling  himself 
injured  by  her,  took  her  to  his  castle  amidst  the 
swampy  flats  of  the  Maremma  and  got  rid  of  her 
there,  makes  a  pathetic  figure  in  Dante's  Purga- 
tory, among  the  sinners  who  repented  at  the  last 
and  desire  to  be  remembered  compassionately  by 
their  fellow-countrymen.  We  know  little  about 
the  grounds  of  mutual  discontent ,  between  the 
Siennese  couple,  but  we  may  infer  witli  some  con- 
fidence that  the  husband  had  never  been  a  very 
delightful  companion,  and  that  on  the  flats  of  the 
Maremma  his  disagreeable  manners  had  a  back- 
ground which  threw  them  out  remarkably ;  whence, 
in  his  desire  to  punish  his  wife  to  the  uttermost, 
the  nature  of  things  was  so  far  against  him  that  \ 
in  relieving  himself  of  her  he  could  not  avoid 
making  the  relief  mutual.  And  thus,  without  any 
hardness  to  the  poor  Tuscan  lady  who  had  her 
deliverance  long  ago,  one  may  feel  warranted  in 
thinking  of  her  with  a  less  sympathetic  interest 
than  of  thejbetter-known  Gwendolen,  who,  instead 
of  being  delivered  from  her  errors  on  earth  and 
cleansed  from  their  effect  in  purgatory,  is  at  the 
very  height  of  her  entanglement  in  those  fatal 
meshes  which  are  woven  within  more  closely  than 
without,  and  often  make  the  inward  torture  dis- 
proportionate to  what  is  discernible  as  outward 
cause. 

In  taking  his  wife  with  him  on  a  yachting  ex- 
pedition, Grandcourt  had  no  intention  to  get  rid 
of  her ;  on  the  contrary,  he  wanted  to  feel  more 
securely  that  she  was  his  to  do  as  he  liked  with, 
and  to  make  her  feel  it  also.  Moreover,  he  was 
himself  very  fond  of  yachting :  its  dreamy  do- 
nothing  absolutism,  unmolested  by  social  de- 
mands, suited  his  disposition,  and  he  did  not  in 
the  least  regard  it  as  an  equivalent  for  the  dreari- 
ness of  the  Maremma.  He  had  his  reasons  for 
carrying  Gwendolen  out  of  reach,  but  they  were 
not  reasons  that  can  seem  black  in  the  mere 
statement.  He  suspected  a  growing  spirit  of 
opposition  in  her,  and  his  feeling  about  the  senti- 
mental inclination  she  betrayed  for  Deronda  was 
what  in  another  man  he  would  have  called  jeal- 
ousy. In  himself  it  seemed  merely  a  resolution 
to  put  an  end  to  such  foolery  as  must  have  been 
going  on  in  that  pre-arranged  visit  of  Deronda's 
which  he  had  divined  and  interrupted. 

And  Grandcourt  might  have  pleaded  that  he 
was  perfectly  justified  in  taking  care  that  his 
wife  should  fulfill  the  obligations  she  had  accept- 
cd.  Her  marriage  was  a  contract  where  all  the 
ostensible  advantages  were  on  her  side,  and  it 
was  only  one  of  those  advantages  that  her  hus- 
band should  use  his  power  to  hinder  her  from  any 
injurious  self-committal  or  unsuitable  behavior. 
He  knew  quite  well  that  she  had  not  married  him 
— had  not  overcome  her  repugnance  to  certain 
facts — out  of  love  to  him  personally ;  he  had  won 
her  by  the  rank  and  luxuries  he  had  to  give  her, 
and  these  she  had  got:  he  had  fulfilled  his  side  of 
the  contract 

And  Gwendolen,  we  know,  was  thoroughly 
aware  of  the  situation.  She  could  not  excuse 
herself  by  saying  that  there  had  been  a  tacit  part 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER   AND   THE  SOX. 


327 


of  the  contract  on  her  side,  namely,  that  she 
meant  to  rule  and  have  her  own  way.  With  all 
her  early  indulgence  in  the  disposition  to  domi- 
nate, she  was  not  one  of  the  narrow-brained 
women  who  through  life  regard  all  their  own 
selfish  demands  as  rights,  and  every  claim  upon 
themselves  as  an  injury.  She  had  a  root  of  con- 
science in  her,  and  the  process  of  purgatory  had 
begun  for  her  on  the  green  earth :  she  knew  that 
she  had  been  wrong. 

But  now  enter  into  the  soul  of  this  young  creat- 
ure as  she  found  herself,  with  the  blue  Mediter- 
ranean dividing  her  from  the  world,  on  the  tiny 
plank-island  of  a  yacht,  the  domain  of  the  hus- 
band to  whom  she  felt  that  she  had  sold  herself, 
and  had  been  paid  the  strict  price — nay,  paid 
more  than  she  had  dared  to  ask  in  the  hand- 
some maintenance  of  her  mother : — the  husband 
to  whom  she  had  sold  her  truthfulness  and  sense 
of  justice,  so  that  he  held  them  throttled  into  si- 
lence, collared  and  dragged  behind  him  to  wit- 
ness what  he  would,  without  remonstrance. 

What  had  she  to  complain  of  ?  The  yacht  was 
of  the  prettiest ;  the  cabin  fitted  up  to  perfection, 
smelling  of  cedar,  soft-cushioned,  hung  with  silk, 
expanded  with  mirrors  ;  the  crew  such  as  suited 
an  elegant  toy,  one  of  them  having  even  ringlets, 
as  well  as  a  bronze  complexion  and  rfine  teeth ; 
and  Mr.  Lush  was  not  there,  for  he  had  taken  his 
•way  back  to  England  as  soon  as  he  had  seen  all 
and  every  thing  on  board.  Moreover,  Gwendolen 
herself  liked  the  sea :  it  did  not  make  her  ill ;  and 
to  observe  the  rigging  of  the  vessel  and  forecast 
the  necessary  adjustments  was  a  sort  of  amuse- 
ment that  might  have  gratified  her  activity  and 
enjoyment  of  imaginary  rule ;  the  weather  was 
fine,  and  they  were  coasting  southward,  where 
even  the  rain-furrowed,  heat-cracked  clay  becomes 
gem-like  with  purple  shadows,  and  where  one  may 
float  between  blue  and  blue  in  an  open-eyed  dream 
that  the  world  has  done  with  sorrow. 

But  what  can  still  that  hunger  of  the  heart 
which  sickens  the  eye  for  beauty,  and  makes  sweet- 
scented  ease  an  oppression  ?  "What  sort  of  Mos- 
lem paradise  would  quiet  the  terrible  fury  of  mor- 
al repulsion  and  cowed  resistance  which,  like  an 
eating  pain  intensifying  into  torture,  concentrates 
the  mind  in  that  poisonous  misery  ?  While  Gwen- 
dolen, throned  on  her  cushions  at  evening,  and 
beholding  the  glory  of  sea  and  sky  softening  as 
if  with  boundless  love  around  her,  was  hoping 
that  Grandcourt  in  his  march  up  and  down  was 
not  going  to  pause  near  her,  not  going  to  look  at 
her  or  speak  to  her,  some  woman  under  a  smoky 
sky,  obliged  to  consider  the  price  of  eggs  in  ar- 
ranging her  dinner,  was  listening  for  the  music 
of  a  footstep  that  would  remove  all  risk  from  her 
foretaste  of  joy ;  some  couple,  bending,  cheek  by 
cheek,  over  a  bit  of  work  done  by  the  one  and 
delighted  in  by  the  other,  were  reckoning  the 
earnings  that  would  make  them  rich  enough  for 
a  holiday  among  the  furze  and  heather. 

Had  Grandcourt  the  least  conception  of  what 
was  going  on  in  the  breast  of  this  wife?  He 
conceived  that  she  did  not  love  him:  but  was 
that  necessary  ?  She  was  under  his  power,  and 
he  was  not  accustomed  to  soothe  himself,  as  some 
cheerfully  disposed  persons  are,  with  the  convic- 
tion that  he  was  very  generally  and  justly  beloved. 
But  what  lay  quite  away  from  his  conception  was, 
that  she  could  have  any  special  repulsion  for  him 
personally.  How  could  she  ?  He  himself  knew 


what  personal  repulsion  was — nobody  better :  his 
mind  was  much  furnished  with  a  sense  of  what 
brutes  his  fellow-creatures  were,  both  masculine 
and  feminine ;  what  odious  familiarities  they  had, 
what  smirks,  what  modes  of  flourishing  their 
handkerchiefs,  what  costume,  what  lavender-wa- 
ter, what  bulging  eyes,  and  what  foolish  notions 
of  making  themselves  agreeable  by  remarks  which 
were  not  wanted.  In  this  critical  view  of  man- 
kind there  was  an  affinity  between  him  and 
Gwendolen  before  their  marriage,  and  we  know 
that  she  had  been  attractingly  wrought  upon  by 
the  refined  negations  he  presented  to  her.  Hence 
he  understood  her  repulsion  for  Lush.  But  how 
was  he  to  understand  or  conceive  her  present 
repulsion  for  Henleigh  Grandcourt?  Some  men 
bring  themselves  to  believe,  and  not  merely  main- 
tain, the  non-existence  of  an  external  world ;  a 
few  others  believe  themselves  objects  of  repul- 
sion to  a  woman  without  being  told  so  in  plain 
language.  But  Grandcourt  did  not  belong  to  this 
eccentric  body  of  thinkers.  He  had  all  his  life 
had  reason  to  take  a  flattering  view  of  his  own 
attractiveness,  and  to  place  himself  in  fine  antith- 
esis to  the  men  who,  he  saw  at  once,  must  be  re- 
volting to  a  woman  of  taste.  He  had  no  idea  of 
a  moral  repulsion,  and  could  not  have  believed,  if 
he  had  been  told  it,  that  there  may  be  a  resent- 
ment and  disgust  which  will  gradually  make 
beauty  more  detestable  than  ugliness,  through 
exasperation  at  that  outward  virtue  in  which 
hateful  things  can  flaunt  themselves  or  find  a 
supercilious  advantage. 

How,  then,  could  Grandcourt  divine  what  was 
going  on  in  Gwendolen's  breast  ? 

For  their  behavior  to  each  other  scandalized 
no  observer — not  even  the  foreign  maid  warrant- 
ed against  seasickness ;  nor  Grandcourt's  own  ex- 
perienced valet;  still  less  the  picturesque  crew, 
who  regarded  them  as  a  model  couple  in  high 
life.  Their  companionship  consisted  chiefly  in  a 
well-bred  silence.  Grandcourt  had  no  humorous 
observations  at  which  Gwendolen  could  refuse  to 
smile,  no  chitchat  to  make  small  occasions  of 
dispute.  He  was  perfectly  polite  in  arranging  an 
additional  garment  over  her  when  needful,  and  in 
handing  her  any  object  that  he  perceived  her  to 
need,  and  she  could  not  fall  into  the  vulgarity  of 
accepting  or  rejecting  such  politeness  rudely. 

Grandcourt  put  up  his  telescope  and  said, 
"  There's  a  plantation  of  sugar-canes  at  the  foot 
of  that  rock :  should  you  like  to  look  ?" 

Gwendolen  said,  "Yes,  please,"  remembering 
that  she  must  try  and  interest  herself  in  sugar- 
canes  as  something  outside  her  personal  affairs. 
Then  Grandcourt  would  walk  up  and  down  and 
smoke  for  a  long  while,  pausing  occasionally  to 
point  out  a  sail  on  the  horizon,  and  at  last  would 
seat  himself  and  look  at  Gwendolen  with  his  nar- 
row, immovable  gaze^  as  if  she  were  part  of  the 
complete  yacht;  while  she,  conscious  of  being 
looked  at,  was  exerting  her  ingenuity  not  to  meet 
his  eyes.  At  dinner  he  would  remark  that  the 
fruit  was  getting  stale,  and  they  must  put  in  some- 
where for  more ;  or,  observing  that  she  did  not 
drink  the  wine,  he  asked  her  if  she  would  like 
any  other  kind  better.  A  lady  was  obliged  to 
respond  to  these  things  suitably ;  and  even  if  she 
had  not  shrunk  from  quarreling  on  other  grounds, 
quarreling  with  Grandcourt  was  impossible :  she 
might  as  well  have  made  angry  remarks  to  a  dan- 
gerous serpent  ornamentally  coiled  in  her  cabia 


228 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


without  invitation.  And  what  sort  of  dispute 
could  a  woman  of  any  pride  and  dignity  begin 
on  a  yacht  ? 

Grandcourt  had  an  intense  satisfaction  in  lead- 
ing his  wife  captive  after  this  fashion :  it  gave 
their  life  on  a  small  scale  a  royal  representation 
and  publicity  in  which  every  thing  familiar  was 
got  rid  of,  and  every  body  must  do  what  was  ex- 
pected of  them,  whatever  might  be  their  private 
protest — the  protest  (kept  strictly  private)  adding 
to  the  piquancy  of  despotism. 

To  Gwendolen,  who,  even  in  the  freedom  of 
her  maiden  time,  had  had  very  faint  glimpses 
of  any  heroism  or  sublimity,  the  medium  that 
now  thrust  itself  every  where  before  her  view 
was  this  husband  and  her  relation  to  him.  The 
beings  closest  to  us,  whether  in  love  or  hate,  are 
often  virtually  our  interpreters  of  the  world,  and 
some  feather-headed  gentleman  or  lady  whom  in 
passing  we  regret  to  take  as  legal  tender  for  a 
human  being  may  be  acting  as  a  melancholy  the- 
ory of  life  in  the  minds  of  those  who  live  with 
them — like  a  piece  of  yellow  and  wavy  glass  that 
distorts  form  and  makes  color  an  affliction.  Their 
trivial  sentences,  their  petty  standards,  their  low 
suspicions,  their  loveless  ennui,  may  be  making 
somebody  else's  life  no  better  than  a  promenade 
through  a  pantheon  of  ugly  idols.  Gwendolen 
had  that  kind  of  window  before  her,  affecting 
the  distant  equally  with  the  near.  Some  unhap- 
py wives  are  soothed  by  the  possibility  that  they 
may  become  mothers ;  but  Gwendolen  felt  that 
to  desire  a  child  for  herself  would  have  been  a 
consenting  to  the  completion  of  the  injury  she 
had  been  guilty  of.  She  was  reduced  to  dread 
lest  she  should  become  a  mother.  It  was  not  the 
image  of  a  new  sweetly  budding  life  that  came 
as  a  vision  of  deliverance  from  the  monotony  of 
distaste:  it  was  an  image  of  another  sort.  In 
the  irritable,  fluctuating  stages  of  despair,  gleams 
of  hope  came  in  the  form  of  some  possible  acci- 
dent. To  dwell  on  the  benignity  of  accident  was 
a  refuge  from  worse  temptation. 

The  imbitterment  of  hatred  is  often  as  unac- 
countable to  on-lookers  as  the  growth  of  devoted 
love,  and  it  not  only  seems,  but  is  really,  out  of 
direct  relation  with  any  outward  causes  to  be  al- 
leged. Passion  is  of  the  nature  of  seed,  and  finds 
nourishment  within,  tending  to  a  predominance 
which  determines  all  currents  toward  itself,  and 
makes  the  whole  life  its  tributary.  And  the  in- 
tensest  form  of  hatred  is  that  rooted  in  fear,  which 
compels  to  silence  and  drives  vehemence  into  a 
constructive  vindictiveness,  an  imaginary  annihi- 
lation of  the  detested  object,  something  like  the 
hidden  rites  of  vengeance  with  which  the  perse- 
cuted have  made  a  dark  vent  for  their  rage,  and 
soothed  their  suffering  into  dumbness.  Such 
hidden  rites  went  on  in  the  secrecy  of  Gwendo- 
len's mind,  but  not  with  soothing  effect — rather 
with  the  effect  of  a  struggling  terror.  Side  by 
side  with  the  dread  of  her  husband  had  grown  the 
self-dread  which  urged  her  to  flee  from  the  pur- 
suing images  wrought  by  her  pent-up  impulse. 
The  vision  of  her  past  wrong-doing,  and  what  it 
had  brought  on  her,  came  with  a  pale  ghastly 
illumination  over  every  imagined  deed  that  was  a 
rash  effort  at  freedom,  such  as  she  had  made  in 
her  marriage.  Moreover,  she  had  learned  to  see 
all  her  acts  through  the  impression  they  would 
make  on  Deronda :  whatever  relief  might  come  to 
her,  she  could  not  sever  it  from  the  judgment  of 


her  that  would  be  created  in  his  mind.  Not  one 
word  of  flattery,  of  indulgence,  of  dependence  on 
her  favor,  could  be  fastened  on  by  her  in  all  their 
intercourse,  to  weaken  his  restraining  power  over 
her  (in  this  way  Deronda's  effort  over  himself 
was  repaid) ;  and  amidst  the  dreary  uncertainties 
of  her  spoiled  life  the  possible  remedies  that  lay 
in  his  mind,  nay,  the  remedy  that  lay  in  her  feel- 
ing for  him,  made  her  only  hope.  He  seemed  to 
her  a  terrible-browed  angel  from  whom  she  could 
not  think  of  concealing  any  deed  so  as  to  win  an 
ignorant  regard  from  him :  it  belonged  to  the  na- 
ture of  their  relation  that  she  should  be  truthful, 
for  his  power  over  her  had  begun  in  the  raising 
of  a  self-discontent  which  could  be  satisfied  only 
by  genuine  change.  But  in  no  concealment  had 
she  now  any  confidence :  her  vision  of  what  she 
had  to  dread  took  more  decidedly  than  ever  the 
form  of  some  fiercely  impulsive  deed,  committed 
as  in  a  dream  that  she  would  instantaneously 
wake  from  to  find  the  effects  real  though  the  im- 
ages had  been  false:  to  find  death  under  her 
hands,  but  instead  of  darkness,  daylight ;  instead 
of  satisfied  hatred,  the  dismay  of  guilt ;  instead  of 
freedom,  the  palsy  of  a  new  terror — a  white  dead 
face  from  which  she  was  forever  trying  to  flee 
and  forever  held  back.  She  remembered  Deron- 
da's words :  they  were  continually  recurring  in 
her  thought : 

"  Turn  your  fear  into  a  safeguard.  Keep  your 
dread  fixed  on  the  idea  of  increasing  your  remorse. 

Take  your  fear  as  a  safeguard.  It  is  like 

quickness  of  hearing.  It  may  make  consequences 
passionately  present  to  you." 

And  so  it  was.  In  Gwendolen's  consciousness 
Temptation  and  Dread  met  and  stared  like  two 
pale  phantoms,  each  seeing  itself  in  the  other — 
each  obstructed  by  its  own  image;  and  all  the 
while  her  fuller  self  beheld  the  apparitions  and 
sobbed  for  deliverance  from  them. 

Inarticulate  prayers,  no  more  definite  than  a 
cry,  often  swept  out  from  her  into  the  vast  si- 
lence, unbroken  except  by  her  husband's  breath- 
ing, or  the  plash  of  the  wave,  or  the  creaking  of 
the  masts;  but  if  ever  she  thought  of  definite 
help,  it  took  the  form  of  Deronda's  presence  and 
words,  of  the  sympathy  he  might  have  for  her,  of 
the  direction  he  might  give  her.  It  was  some- 
times after  a  white-lipped,  fierce-eyed  temptation 
with  murdering  fingers  had  made  its  demon-visit 
that  these  best  moments  of  inward  crying  and 
clinging  for  rescue  would  come  to  her,  and  she 
would  lie  with  wide-open  eyes  in  which  the  rising 
tears  seemed  a  blessing,  and  the  thought,  "  I  will 
not  mind  if  I  can  keep  from  getting  wicked," 
seemed  an  answer  to  the  indefinite  prayer. 

So  the  days  passed,  taking  them  with  light 
breezes  beyond  and  about  the  Balearic  Isles,  and 
then  to  Sardinia,  and  then  with  gentle  change 
persuading  them  northward  again  toward  Corsica. 
But  this  floating,  gently  wafted  existence,  with  its 
apparently  peaceful  influences,  was  becoming  as 
bad  as  a  nightmare  to  Gwendolen. 

"  How  long  are  we  to  be  yachting  ?"  she  ven- 
tured to  ask  one  day  after  they  had  been  touching 
at  Ajaccio,  and  the  mere  fact  of  change  in  goin^ 
ashore  had  given  her  a  relief  from  some  of  the 
thoughts  which  seemed  now  to  cling  about  the 
very  rigging  of  the  vessel,  mix  with  the  air  in 
the  red  silk  cabin  below,  and  make  the  smell  of 
the  sea  odious. 

"  What  else  should  we  do  ?"  said  Grandcourt. 


BOOK  VII.— THE  MOTHER  AND  THE  SOX. 


229 


"  I'm  not  tired  of  it.  I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't 
stay  out  any  length  of  time.  There's  less  to  bore 
one  in  this  way.  And  where  would  you  go  to  ? 
I'm  sick  of  foreign  places.  And  we  shall  have 
enough  of  Ryelands.  Would  you  rather  be  at 
Ryelands  ?" 

"  Oh  no,"  said  Gwendolen,  indifferently,  find- 
ing all  places  alike  undesirable  as  soon  as  she 
imagined  herself  and  her  husband  in  them.  "  I 
only  wondered  how  long  you  would  like  this." 

"  I  like  yachting  longer  than  I  like  any  thing 
else,"  said  Grandcourt;  "and  I  had  none  last 
year.  I  suppose  you  are  beginning  to  tire  of  it. 
Women  are  so  confoundedly  whimsical.  They 
expect  every  thing  to  give  way  to  them." 

"  Oh  dear,  no  !"  said  Gwendolen,  letting  out  her 
scorn  in  a  flute-like  tone.  "  I  never  expect  you 
to  give  way." 

"  Why  should  I  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  with  his 
inward  voice,  looking  at  her,  and  then  choosing 
an  orange — for  they  were  at  table. 

She  made  up  her  mind  to  a  length  of  yachting 
that  she  could  not  see  beyond ;  but  the  next  day, 
after  a  squall  which  had  made  her  rather  ill  for 
the  first  time,  he  came  down  to  her  and  said, 

"  There's  been  the  devil's  own  work  in  the 
night.  The  skipper  says  we  shall  have  to  stay 
at  Genoa  for  a  week  while  things  are  set  right." 

"  Do  you  mind  that  ?"  said  Gwendolen,  who  lay 
looking  very  white  amidst  her  white  drapery. 

"  I  should  think  so.  Who  wants  to  be  broil- 
ing at  Genoa  ?" 

"  It  will  be  a  change,"  said  Gwendolen,  made 
a  little  incautious  by  her  languor. 

"  /  don't  want  any  change.  Besides,  the  place 
is  intolerable;  and  one  can't  move  along  the 
roads.  I  shall  go  out  in  a  boat,  as  I  used  to  do, 
and  manage  it  myself.  One  can  get  rid  of  a  few 
hours  every  day  in  that  way,  instead  of  stiving  in 
a  damnable  hotel." 

Here  was  a  prospect  which  held  hope  in  it. 
Gwendolen  thought  of  hours  when  she  would  be 
alone,  since  Grandcourt  would  not  want  to  take 
her  in  the  said  boat,  and  in  her  exultation  at  this 
unlooked-for  relief  she  had  wild,  contradictory 
fancies  of  what  she  might  do  with  her  freedom 
— that  "  running  away,"  which  she  had  already 
innumerable  times  seen  to  be  a  worse  evil  than 
any  actual  endurance,  now  finding  new  arguments 
as  an  escape  from  her  worst  self.  Also,  visionary 
relief  on  a  par  with  the  fancy  of  a  prisoner  that 
the  night  wind  may  blow  down  the  wall  of  his 
prison  and  save  him  from  desperate  devices,  in- 
sinuated itself  as  a  better  alternative,  lawful  to 
wish  for. 

The  fresh  current  of  expectation  revived  her 
energies,  and  enabled  her  to  take  all  things  with 
an  air  of  cheerfulness  and  alacrity  that  made  a 
change  marked  enough  to  be  noticed  by  her  hus- 
band. She  watched  through  the  evening  lights 
to  the  sinking  of  the  moon  with  less  of  awed 
loneliness  than  was  habitual  to  her — nay,  with  a 
vague  impression  that  in  this  mighty  frame  of 
things  there  might  be  some  preparation  of  rescue 
for  her.  Why  not  ? — since  the  weather  had  just 
been  on  her  side.  This  possibility  of  hoping, 
after  her  long  fluctuation  amidst  fears,  was  like 
a  first  return  of  hunger  to  the  long-languishing 
patient. 

She  was  waked  the  next  morning  by  the  cast- 
ing of  the  anchor  in  the  port  of  Genoa — waked 
from  a  strangely  mixed  dream  in  which  she  felt 


herself  escaping  over  the  Mont  Cenis,  and  won- 
dering to  find  it  warmer  even  in  the  moonlight  on 
the  snow,  till  suddenly  she  met  Deronda,  who  told 
her  to  go  back. 

In  an  hour  or  so  from  that  dream  she  actually 
met  Deronda.  But  it  was  on  the  palatial  stair- 
case of  the  Italia,  where  she  was  feeling  warm  in 
her  light  woolen  dress  and  straw  hat ;  and  her 
husband  was  by  her  side. 

There  was  a  start  of  surprise  in  Deronda  before 
he  could  raise  his  hat  and  pass  on.  The  moment 
did  not  seem  to  favor  any  closer  greeting,  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  they  had  last  parted 
made  him  doubtful  whether  Grandcourt  would  be 
civilly  inclined  to  him. 

The  doubt  might  certainly  have  been  changed 
into  a  disagreeable  certainty ;  for  Grandcourt,  on 
this  unaccountable  appearance  of  Deronda  at  Gen- 
oa of  all  places,  immediately  tried  to  conceive  how 
there  could  have  been  an  arrangement  between 
him  and  Gwendolen.  It  is  true  that  before  they 
were  well  in  their  rooms  he  had  seen  how  difficult 
it  was  to  shape  such  an  arrangement  with  any 
probability,  being  too  cool-headed  to  find  it  at 
once  easily  credible  that  Gwendolen  had  not  only 
while  in  London  hastened  to  inform  Deronda  of 
the  yachting  project,  but  had  posted  a  letter  to 
him  from  Marseilles  or  Barcelona,  advising  him  to 
travel  to  Genoa  in  time  for  the  chance  of  meeting 
her  there,  or  of  receiving  a  letter  from  her  telling 
of  some  other  destination — all  which  must  have 
implied  a  miraculous  foreknowledge  in  her,  and 
in  Deronda  a  bird-like  facility  in  flying  about 
and  perching  idly.  Still,  he  was  there,  and  though 
Grandcourt  would  not  make  a  fool  of  himself  by 
fabrications  that  others  might  call  preposterous, 
he  was  not,  for  all  that,  disposed  to  admit  fully 
that  Deronda's  presence  was,  so  far  as  Gwendolen 
was  concerned,  a  mere  accident.  It  was  a  dis- 
gusting fact ;  that  was  enough ;  and  no  doubt  she 
was  well  pleased.  A  man  out  of  temper  does  not 
wait  for  proofs  before  feeling  toward  all  things 
animate  and  inanimate  as  if  they  were  in  a  con-, 
spiracy  against  him,  but  at  once  thrashes  his  horse 
or  kicks  his  dog  in  consequence.  Grandcourt  felt 
toward  Gwendolen  and  Deronda  as  if  he  knew 
them  to  be  in  a  conspiracy  against  him,  and  here 
was  an  event  in  league  with  them.  What  he  took 
for  .clearly  certain — and  so  far  he  divined  the 
truth — was  that  Gwendolen  was  now  counting 
on  an  interview  with  Deronda  whenever  her  hus- 
band's back  was  turned. 

As  he  sat  taking  his  coffee  at  a  convenient 
angle  for  observing  her,  he  discerned  something 
which  he  felt  sure  was  the  effect  of  a  secret  de- 
light— some  fresh  ease  in  moving  and  speaking, 
some  peculiar  meaning  in  her  eyes,  whatever  she 
looked  on.  Certainly  her  troubles  had  not  marred 
her  beauty.  Mrs.  Grandcourt  was  handsomer 
than  Gwendolen  Harleth :  her  grace  and  expres- 
sion were  informed  by  a  great«r  variety  of  inward 
experience,  giving  new  play  to  the  facial  muscles, 
new  attitudes  in  movement  and  repose ;  her  whole 
person  and  air  had  the  nameless  something  which 
often  makes  a  woman  more  interesting  after  mar- 
riage than  before,  less  confident  that  all  things 
are  according  to  her  opinion,  and  yet  with  less 
of  deer-like  shyness — more  fully  a  human  being. 

This  morning  the  benefits  of  the  voyage  seem- 
ed to  be  suddenly  revealing  themselves  in  a  new 
elasticity  of  mien.  As  she  rose  from  the  table 
and  put  a  heavily  jeweled  hand  on  each  side  of 


230 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


her  neck,  according  to  her  wont,  she  had  no  art 
to  conceal  that  sort  of  joyous  expectation  which 
makes  the  present  more  bearable  than  usual,  just 
as  when  a  man  means  to  go  out  he  finds  it  easier 
to  be  amiable  to  the  family  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  beforehand.  It  is  not  impossible  that  a  ter- 
rier whose  pleasure  was  concerned  would  perceive 
those  amiable  signs  and  know  their  meaning — 
know  why  his  master  stood  in  a  peculiar  way, 
talked  with  alacrity,  and  even  had  a  peculiar 
gleam  in  his  eye,  so  that  on  the  least  movement 
toward  the  door  the  terrier  would  scuttle  to  be 
in  time.  And,  in  dog  fashion,  Grandcourt  dis- 
cerned the  signs  of  Gwendolen's  expectation,  in- 
terpreting them  with  the  narrow  correctness  which 
leaves  a  world  of  unknown  feeling  behind. 

"  A — just  ring,  please,  and  tell  Gibbs  to  order 
some  dinner  for  us  at  three,"  said  Grandcourt,  as 
he  too  rose,  took  out  a  cigar,  and  then  stretched 
his  hand  toward  the  hat  that  lay  near.  "  I'm  go- 
ing to  send  Angus  to  find  me  a  little  sailing  boat 
for  us  to  go  out  in ;  one  that  I  can  manage,  with 
you  at  the  tiller.  It's  uncommonly  pleasant  these 
fine  evenings — the  least  boring  of  any  thing  we 
can  do." 

Gwendolen  turned  cold :  there  was  not  only  the 
cruel  disappointment — there  was  the  immediate 
conviction  that  her  husband  had  determined  to 
take  her  because  he  would  not  leave  her  out  of 
his  sight ;  and  probably  this  dual  solitude  in  a 
boat  was  the  more  attractive  to  him  because  it 
would  be  wearisome  to  her.  They  were  not  on 
the  plank-island ;  she  felt  it  the  more  possible  to 
begin  a  contest.  But  the  gleaming  content  had 
died  out  of  her.  There  was  a  change  in  her  like 
that  of  a  glacier  after  sunset. 

"  I  would  rather  not  go  in  the  boat,"  she  said. 
"  Take  some  one  else  with  you." 

"  Very  well ;  if  you  don't  go,  I  shall  not  go," 
said  Grandcourt.  "We  shall  stay  suffocating 
here,  that's  all." 

"I  can't  bear  going  in  a  boat,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, angrily. 

"  That  is  a  sudden  change,"  said  Grandcourt, 
with  a  slight  sneer.  "  But  since  you  decline,  we 
shall  stay  in-doors." 

He  laid  down  his  hat  again,  lit  his  cigar,  and 
walked  up  and  down  the  room,  pausing  now  and 
then  to  look  out  of  the  windows.  Gwendolen's 
temper  told  her  to  persist.  She  knew  very  well 
now  that  Grandcourt  would  not  go  without  her; 
but  if  he  must  tyrannize  over  her,  he  should  not 
do  it  precisely  in  the  way  he  would  choose.  She 
would  oblige  him  to  stay  in  the  hotel.  Without 
speaking  again,  she  passed  into  the  adjoining  bed- 
room, and  threw  herself  into  a  chair  with  her  an- 
ger, seeing  no  purpose  or  issue — only  feeling  that 
the  wave  of  evil  had  rushed  back  upon  her,  and 
dragged  her  away  from  her  momentary  breathing- 
place. 

Presently  Grandcourt  came  in  with  his  hat  on, 
but  threw  it  off  and  sat  down  sideways  on  a  chair 
nearly  in  front  of  her,  saying,  in  his  superficial 
drawl, 

"  Have  you  come  round  yet  ?  or  do  you  find  it 
agreeable  to  be  out  of  temper  ?  You  make  things 
uncommonly  pleasant  for  me." 

"  Why  do  you  want  to  make  them  unpleasant 
for  me?"  said  Gwendolen,  getting  helpless  again, 
and  feeling  the  hot  tears  rise. 

"  Now  will  you  be  good  enough  to  say  what  it 
is  you  have  to  complain  of?"  said  Grandcourt, 


looking  into  her  eyes,  and  using  his  most  inward 
voice.  "  Is  it  that  I  stay  in-doors  when  you  stay  ?" 

She  could  give  no  answer.  The  sort  of  truth 
that  made  any  excuse  for  her  anger  could  not  be 
uttered.  In  the  conflict  of  despair  and  humilia- 
tion she  began  to  sob,  and  the  tears  rolled  down 
her  cheeks — a  form  of  agitation  which  she  had 
never  shown  before  in  her  husband's  presence. 

"  I  hope  this  is  useful,"  said  Grandcourt,  after 
a  moment  or  two.  "All  I  can  say  is,  it's  most 
confoundedly  unpleasant.  What  the  devil  women 
can  see  in  this  kind  of  thing,  I  don't  know.  You 
see  something  to  be  got  by  it,  of  course.  All  I 
can  see  is  that  we  shall  be  shut  up  here  when  we 
might  have  been  having  a  pleasant  sail." 

"  Let  us  go,  then,"  said  Gwendolen,  impetuous- 
ly. "  Perhaps  we  shall  be  drowned."  She  began 
to  sob  again. 

This  extraordinary  behavior,  which  had  evi- 
dently some  relation  to  Deronda,  gave  more  defi- 
niteness  to  Grandcourt's  conclusions.  He  drew 
his  chair  quite  close  in  front  of  her,  and  said,  in 
a  low  tone,  "  Just  be  quiet  and  listen,  will  you  ?" 

There  seemed  to  be  a  magical  effect  in  this 
close  vicinity.  Gwendolen  shrank  and  ceased  to 
sob.  She  kept  her  eyelids  down,  and  clasped  her 
hands  tightly. 

"  Let  us  understand  each  other,"  said  Grand- 
court,  in  the  same  tone.  "  I  know  very  well  what 
this  nonsense  means.  But  if  you  suppose  I  am 
going  to  let  you  make  a  fool  of  me,  just  dismiss 
that  notion  from  your  mind.  What  are  you  look- 
ing forward  to,  if  you  can't  behave  properly  as 
my  wife  ?  There  is  disgrace  for  you,  if  you  like 
to  have  it,  but  I  don't  know  any  thing  else  ;  and 
as  to  Deronda,  it's  quite  clear  that  he  hangs  back 
from  you." 

"It  is  all  false!"  said  Gwendolen,  bitterly. 
"  You  don't  in  the  least  imagine  what  is  in  my 
mind.  I  have  seen  enough  of  the  disgrace  that 
comes  in  that  way.  And  you  had  better  leave 
me  at  liberty  to  speak  with  any  one  I  like.  It 
would  be  better  for  you." 

"You  will  allow  me  to  judge  of  that,"  said 
Grandcourt,  rising  and  moving  to  a  little  distance 
toward  the  window,  but  standing  there  playing 
with  his  whiskers  as  if  he  were  awaiting  some- 
thing. 

Gwendolen's  words  had  so  clear  and  tremen- 
dous a  meaning  for  herself,  that  she  thought  they 
must  have  expressed  it  to  Grandcourt,  and  had  no 
sooner  uttered  them  than  she  dreaded  their  ef- 
fect. But  his  soul  was  garrisoned  against  pre- 
sentiments and  fears :  he  had  the  courage  and 
confidence  that  belong  to  domination,  and  he  was 
at  that  moment  feeling  perfectly  satisfied  that  he 
held  his  wife  with  bit  and  bridle.  By  the  time 
they  had  been  married  a  year  she  would  cease  to 
be  restive.  He  continued  standing  with  his  air  of 
indifference,  till  she  felt  her  habitual  stifling  con- 
sciousness of  having  an  immovable  obstruction  in 
her  life,  like  the  nightmare  of  beholding  a  single 
form  that  serves  to  arrest  all  passage,  though  the 
wide  country  lies  open. 

"  What  decision  have  you  come  to  ?"  he  said, 
presently,  looking  at  her.  "  What  orders  shall  I 
give  ?" 

"  Oh,  let  us  go,"  said  Gwendolen.  The  walls 
had  begun  to  be  an  imprisonment,  and  while 
there  was  breath  in  this  man  ho  would  have  the 
mastery  over  her.  His  words  had  the  power  of 
thumb-screws  and  the  cold  touch  of  the  rack.  To 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AND   THE  SON. 


231 


resist  was  to  act  like  a  stupid  animal  unable  to 
measure  results. 

So  the  boat  was  ordered.  She  even  went  down 
to  the  quay  again  with  him  to  see  it  before  mid- 
day. Grandcourt  had  recovered  perfect  quietude 
of  temper,  and  had  a  scornful  satisfaction  in  the 
attention  given  by  the  nautical  groups  to  the 
milord,  owner  of  the  handsome  yacht  which  had 
just  put  in  for  repairs,  and  who,  being  an  English- 
man, was  naturally  so  at  home  on  the  sea  that  he 
could  manage  a  sail  with  the  same  ease  that  he 
could  manage  a  horse.  The  sort  of  exultation  he 
had  discerned  in  Gwendolen  this  morning'She  now 
thought  that  she  discerned  in  him;  and  it  was 
true  that  he  had  set  his  mind  on  this  boating,  and 
carried  out  his  purpose  as  something  that  people 
might  not  expect  him  to  do,  with  the  gratified 
impulse  of  a  strong  will  which  had  nothing  better 
to  exert  itself  upon.  He  had  remarkable  physical 
courage,  and  was  proud  of  it — or  rather  he  had  a 
great  contempt  for-the  coarser,  bulkier  men  who 
generally  had  less.  Moreover,  he  was  ruling  that 
Gwendolen  should  go  with  him. 

And  when  they  came  down  again  at  five  o'clock, 
equipped  for  their  boating,  the  scene  was  as  good 
as  a  theatrical  representation  for  all  beholders. 
This  handsome,  fair-skinned  English  couple  mani- 
festing the  usual  eccentricity  of  their  nation,  both 
of  them  proud,  pale,  and  calm,  without  a  smile 
on  their  faces,  moving  like  creatures  who  were 
fulfilling  a  supernatural  destiny — it  was  a  thing 
to  go  out  and  see,  a  thing  to  paint.  The  hus- 
band's chest,  back,  and  arms  showed  very  well  in 
his  close-fitting  dress,  and  the  wife  was  declared 
to  be  like  a  statue. 

Some  suggestions  were  proffered  concerning  a 
possible  change  in  the  breeze  and  the  necessary 
care  in  putting  about,  but  Grandcourt's  manner 
made  the  speakers  understand  that  they  were  too 
officious,  and  that  he  knew  better  than  they. 

Gwendolen,  keeping  her  impassible  air,  as  they 
moved  away  from  the  strand,  felt  her  imagina- 
tion obstinately  at  work.  She  was  not  afraid  of 
any  outward  dangers — she  was  afraid  of  her  own 
wishes,  which  were  taking  shapes  possible  and 
impossible,  like  a  cloud  of  demon-faces.  She 
was  afraid  of  her  own  hatred,  which  under  the 
cold  iron  touch  that  had  compelled  her  to-day 
had  gathered  a  fierce  intensity.  As  she  sat  guid- 
ing the  tiller  under  her  husband's  eyes,  doing  just 
what  he  told  her,  the  strife  within  her  seemed 
like  her  own  effort  to  escape  from  herself.  She 
clung  to  the  thought  of  De'ronda :  she  persuaded 
herself  that  he  would  not  go  away  while  she  was 
there — he  knew  that  she  needed  help.  The  sense 
that  he  was  there  would  save  her  from  acting  out 
the  evil  within.  And  yet  quick,  quick,  came  im- 
ages, plans  of  evil  that  would  come  again  and 
seize  her  in  the  night,  like  furies  preparing  the 
deed  that  they  would  straightway  avenge. 

They  were  taken  out  of  the  port  and  carried 
eastward  by  a  gentle  breeze.  Some  clouds  tem- 
pered the  sunlight,  and  the  hour  was  always  deep- 
ening toward  the  supreme  beauty  of  evening. 
Sails  larger  and  smaller  changed  their  aspect  like 
sensitive  things,  and  made  a  cheerful  companion- 
ship, alternately  near  and  far.  The  grand  city 
shone  more  vaguely,  the  mountains  looked  out 
above  it,  and  there  was  stillness  as  in  an  island 
sanctuary.  Yet  suddenly  Gwendolen  let  her  hands 
fall,  and  said,  in  a  scarcely  audible  tone,  "  God 
help  me  1" 


"  What  is  the  matter  ?"  said  Grandcourt,  not 
distinguishing  the  words. 

"  Oh,  nothing,"  said  Gwendolen,  rousing  her- 
self  from  her  momentary  forgetfulness  and  re- 
suming the  ropes. 

"Don't  you  find  this  pleasant?"  said  Grand- 
court. 

"  Very." 

"  You  admit  now  we  couldn't  have  done  any 
thing  better  ?" 

"No — I  see  nothing  better.  I  think  we  shall 
go  on  always,  like  the  Flying  Dutchman,"  said 
Gwendolen,  wildly. 

Grandcourt  gave  her  one  of  his  narrow,  exam- 
ining glances,  and  then  said,  "If  you  like,  we  car 
go  to  Spezia  in  the  morning,  and  let  them  take 
us  up  there." 

"  No ;  I  shall  like  nothing  better  than  this." 

"  Very  well ;  we'll  do  the  same  to-morrow.  But 
we  must  be  turning  in  soon.  I  shall  put  about." 


CHAPTER  LV. 

"Rltorna  a  tna  scienza 
Che  vuol,  quanto  la  cosa  6  piti  perfetta 
Piti  senta  il  bene,  e  coei  la  doghenza." 

—DANTE. 

WHEN  Deronda  met  Gwendolen  and  Grand- 
court  on  the  staircase,  his  mind  was  seriously 
preoccupied.  He  had  just  been  summoned  to 
the  second  interview  with  his  mother. 

In  two  hours  after  his  parting  from  her  he 
knew  that  the  Princess  Halm-Eberstein  had  left 
the  hotel,  and  so  far  as  the  purpose  of  his  jour- 
ney to  Genoa  was  concerned  he  might  himself 
have  set  off  on  his  way  to  Mainz,  to  deliver  the 
letter  from  Joseph  Kalonymos,  and  get  posses- 
sion of  the  family  chest.  But  mixed  mental  con- 
ditions, which  did  not  resolve  themselves  into 
definite  reasons,  hindered  him  from  departure. 
Long  after  the  farewell  he  was  kept  passive  by  a 
weight  of  retrospective  feeling.  He  lived  again, 
with  the  new  keenness  of  emotive  memory, 
through  the  exciting  scenes  which  seemed  past 
only  in  the  sense  of  preparation  for  their  actual 
presence  in  his  soul.  He  allowed  himself  in  hia 
solitude  to  sob,  with  perhaps  more  than  a  wom- 
an's acuteness  of  compassion,  over  that  woman's 
life  so  near  to  his,  and  yet  so  remote.  He  beheld 
the  world  changed  for  him  by  the  certitude  of  ties 
that  altered  the  poise  of  hopes  and  fears,  and  gave 
him  a  new  sense  of  fellowship,  as  if  under  cover 
of  the  night  he  had  joined  the  wrong  band  of 
wanderers,  and  found  with  the  rise  of  morning 
that  the  tents  of  his  kindred  were  grouped  far 
off.  He  had  a  quivering  imaginative  sense  of  close 
relation  to  the  grandfather  who  had  been  ani- 
mated by  strong  impulsed  and  beloved  thoughts, 
which  were  now  perhaps  being  roused  from  their 
slumber  within  himself.  And  through  all  this 
passionate  meditation  Mordecai  and  Mirah  were 
always  present,  as  beings  who  clasged  hands  with 
him  in  sympathetic  silence. 

Of  such  quick,  responsive  fibre  was  Deronda 
made,  under  that  mantle  of  self-controlled  reserve 
nto  which  early  experience  had  thrown  so  much 
of  his  young  strength. 

When  the  persistent  ringing  of  a  bell  as  a  sig- 
nal reminded  him  of  the  hour,  he  thought  of  look- 
ing into  Eradshaw,  and  making  the  brief  neces- 
sary preparations  for  starting  by  the  next  train 


DANIEL   DEROXDA. 


— thought  of  it,  but  made  no  movement  in  conse- 
quence. Wishes  went  to  Mainz  and  what  he  was 
to  get  possession  of  there — to  London  and  the 
beings  there  who  made  the  strongest  attachments 
of  his  life ;  but  there  were  other  wishes  that  clung 
in  these  moments  to  Genoa,  and  they  kept  him 
where  he  was,  by  that  force  which  urges  us  to 
linger  over  an  interview  that  carries  a  presenti- 
ment of  final  farewell  or  of  overshadowing  sor- 
row. Deronda  did  not  formally  say,  "  I  will  stay 
over  to-night,  because  it  is  Friday,  and  I  should 
like  to  go  to  the  evening  service  at  the  synagogue 
where  they  must  all  have  gone ;  and  besides,  I 
may  see  the  Grandcourts  again."  But  simply,  in- 
stead of  packing  and  ringing  for  his  bill,  he  sat 
doing  nothing  at  all,  while  his  mind  went  to  the 
synagogue  and  saw  faces  there  probably  little  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  his  grandfather's  time,  and 
heard  the  Spanish-Hebrew  liturgy  which  had  last- 
ed through  the  seasons  of  wandering  generations 
like  a  plant  with  wandering  seed,  that  gives  the 
far-off  lands  a  kinship  to  the  exile's  home — while, 
also,  his  mind  went  toward  Gwendolen,  with  anx- 
ious remembrance  of  what  had  been,  and  with  a 
half-admitted  impression  that  it  would  be  hard- 
ness in  him  willingly  to  go  away  at  once  without 
making  some  effort,  in  spite  of  Grandcourt's  prob- 
able dislike,  to  manifest  the  continuance  of  his 
sympathy  with  her  since  their  abrupt  parting. 

In  this  state  of  mind  he  deferred  departure,  ate 
his  dinner  without  sense  of  flavor,  rose  from  it 
quickly  to  find  the  synagogue,  and  in  passing  the 
porter  asked  if  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Grandcourt  were  still 
in  the  hotel,  and  what  was  the  number  of  their 
apartment.  The  porter  gave  him  the  number, 
but  added  that  they  were  gone  out  boating.  That 
information  had  somehow  power  enough  over  De- 
ronda to  divide  his  thoughts  with  the  memories 
wakened  among  the  sparse  taliths  and  keen  dark 
faces  of  worshipers  whose  way  of  taking  awful 
prayers  and  invocations  with  the  easy  familiarity 
which  might  be  called  Hebrew  dyed  Italian,  made 
him  reflect  that  his  grandfather,  according  to  the 
Princess's  hints  of  his  character,  must  have  been 
almost  as  exceptional  a  Jew  as  Mordecai.  But 
were  not  men  of  ardent  zeal  and  far-reaching  hope 
every  where  exceptional  ? — the  men  who  had  the 
visions  which,  as  Mordecai  said,  were  the  creators 
and  feeders  of  the  world — moulding  and  feeding 
the  more  passive  life  which  without  them  would 
dwindle  and  shrivel  into  the  narrow  tenacity  of 
insects,  unshaken  by  thoughts  beyond  the  reaches 
of  their  antennae.  Something  of  a  mournful  im- 
patience, perhaps,  added  itself  to  the  solicitude 
about  Gwendolen  (a  solicitude  that  had  room  to 
grow  in  his  present  release  from  immediate  cares) 
as  an  incitement  to  hasten  from  the  synagogue 
and  choose  to  take  his  evening  walk  toward  the 
quay,  always  a  favorite  haunt  with  him,  and  just 
now  attractive  with  the  possibility  that  he  might 
be  in  time  to  see  the  Grandcourts  come  in  from 
their  boating.  In  this  case,  he  resolved  that  he 
would  advance  to  greet  them  deliberately,  and 
ignore  any  grounds  that  the  husband  might  have 
for  wishing  him  elsewhere. 

The  sun  had  set  behind  a  bank  of  cloud,  and 
only  a  faint  yellow  light  was  giving  its  farewell 
kisses  to  the  waves,  which  were  agitated  by  an 
active  breeze.  Deronda,  sauntering  slowly  within 
sight  of  what  took  place  on  the  strand,  observed 
the  groups  there  concentrating  their  attention  on 
a  sailing  boat  which  was  advancing  swiftly  land- 


ward, being  rowed  by  two  men.  Amidst  the 
clamorous  talk  in  various  languages,  Deronda  held 
it  the  surer  means  of  getting  information  not  to 
ask  questions,  but  to  elbow  his  way  to  the  fore- 
ground and  be  an  unobstructed  witness  of  what 
was  occurring.  Telescopes  were  being  used,  and 
loud  statements  made  that  the  boat  held  some- 
body who  had  been  drowned.  One  said  it  was 
the  milord  who  had  gone  out  in  a  sailing  boat ; 
another  maintained  that  the  prostrate  figure  he 
discerned  was  miladi ;  a  Frenchman  who  had  no 
glass  would  rather  say  that  it  was  milord  who 
had  probably  taken  his  wife  out  to  drown  her, 
according  to  the  national  practice — a  remark 
which  an  English  skipper  immediately  comment- 
ed on  in  our  native  idiom  (as  nonsense  which — 
had  undergone  a  mining  operation),  and  further 
dismissed  by  the  decision  that  the  reclining  figure 
was  a  woman.  For  Deronda,  terribly  excited  by 
fluctuating  fears,  the  strokes  of  the  oars  as  he 
watched  them  were  divided  by  swift  visions  of 
events,  possible  and  impossible,  which  might  have 
brought  about  this  issue,  or  this  broken-off  frag- 
ment of  an  issue,  with  a  worse  half  undisclosed — 
if  this  woman  apparently  snatched  from  the  wa- 
ters were  really  Mrs.  Grandcourt. 

But  soon  there  was  no  longer  any  doubt :  the 
boat  was  being  pulled  to  land,  and  he  saw  Gwen- 
dolen half  raising  herself  on  her  hands,  by  her 
own  effort,  under  her  heavy  covering  of  tarpaulin 
and  pea-jackets — pale  as  one  of  the  sheeted  dead, 
shivering,  with  wet  hair  streaming,  a  wild  amazed 
consciousness  in  her  eyes,  as  if  she  had  waked  up 
in  a  world  where  some  judgment  was  impending, 
and  the  beings  she  saw  around  were  coming  to 
seize  her.  The  first  rower  who  jumped  to  land 
was  also  wet  through,  and  ran  off;  the  sailors, 
close  about  the  boat,  hindered  Deronda  from  ad- 
vancing, and  he  could  only  look  on  while  Gwen- 
dolen gave  scared  glances,  and  seemed  to  shrink 
with  terror  as  she  was  carefully,  tenderly  helped 
out,  and  led  on  by  the  strong  arms  of  those  rough, 
bronzed  men,  her  wet  clothes  clinging  about  her 
limbs,  and  adding  to  the  impediment  of  her  weak- 
ness. Suddenly  her  wandering  eyes  fell  on  De- 
ronda, standing  before  her,  and  immediately,  as 
if  she  had  been  expecting  him  and  looking  for 
him,  she  tried  to  stretch  out  her  hands,  which 
were  held  back  by  her  supporters,  saying,  in  a 
muffled  voice, 

"  It  is  come,  it  is  come !    He  is  dead !" 

"  Hush,  hush !"  said  Deronda,  in  a  tone  of  au- 
thority ;  "  quiet  yourself."  Then,  to  the  men  who 
were  assisting  her,  "  I  am  a  connection  of  this 
lady's  husband.  If  you  will  get  her  on  to  the 
Italia  as  quickly  as  possible,  I  will  undertake 
every  thing  else." 

He  staid  behind  to  hear  from  the  remaining 
boatman  that  her  husband  had  gone  down  irre- 
coverably, and  that  his  boat  was  left  floating 
empty.  He  and  his  comrade  had  heard  a  cry, 
had  come  up  in  time  to  sec  the  lady  jump  in  after 
her  husband,  and  had  got  her  out  fast  enough  to 
save  her  from  much  damage. 

After  this,  Deronda  hastened  to  the  hotel,  to 
assure  himself  that  the  best  medical  help  would 
be  provided ;  and  being  satisfied  on  this  point,  he 
telegraphed  the  event  to  Sir  Hugo,  begging  him 
to  come  forthwith,  and  also  to  Mr.  Gascoigne, 
whose  address  at  the  Rectory  made  his  nearest 
known  way  of  getting  the  information  to  Gwen- 
dolen's mother.  Certain  words  of  Gwendolen's  in 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AND   THE   SON. 


the  past  had  come  back  to  him  with  the  effective- 
ness of  an  inspiration:  in  moments  of  agitated 
confession  she  had  spoken  of  her  mother's  pres- 
ence as  a  possible  help,  if  she  could  have  had  it. 


CHAPTER  LVI. 


e  pan 
ad  n 


Had  never  passed  away  : 
I  could  not  draw  my  eyes  from  theirs, 
Nor  lift  them  up  to  pray." 

—  COLEBIWOE. 

DERONDA  did  not  take  off  his  clothes  that  night. 
Gwendolen,  after  insisting  on  seeing  him  again 
before  she  would  consent  to  be  undressed,  had 
been  perfectly  quiet,  and  had  only  asked  him, 
with  a  whispering,  repressed  eagerness,  to  prom- 
ise that  he  would  come  to  her  when  she  sent  for 
him  in  the  morning.  Still,  the  possibility  that  a 
change  might  come  over  her,  the  danger  of  a  su- 
pervening feverish  condition,  and  the  suspicion 
that  something  in  the  late  catastrophe  was  having 
an  effect  which  might  betray  itself  in  excited 
words,  acted  as  a  foreboding  within  him.  He 
mentioned  to  her  attendant  that  he  should  keep 
himself  ready  to  be  called  if  there  were  any  alarm- 
ing change  of  symptoms,  making  it  understood  by 
all  concerned  that  he  was  in  communication  with 
her  friends  in  England,  and  felt  bound  meanwhile 
to  take  all  care  on  her  behalf  —  a  position  which 
it  was  the  easier  for  him  to  assume,  because  he 
was  well  known  to  Grandcourt's  valet,  the  only 
old  servant  who  had  come  on  the  late  voyage. 

But  when  fatigue  from  the  strangely  various 
emotion  of  the  day  at  last  sent  Deronda  to  sleep, 
he  remained  undisturbed  except  by  the  morning 
dreams  which  came  as  a  tangled  web  of  yester- 
day's events,  and  finally  waked  him  with  an  image 
drawn  by  his  pressing  anxiety. 

Still,  it  was  morning,  and  there  had  been  no 
summons  —  an  augury  which  cheered  him  while 
he  made  his  toilet,  and  reflected  that  it  was  too 
early  to  send  inquiries.  Later,  he  learned  that 
she  had  passed  a  too  wakeful  night,  but  had 
shown  no  violent  signs  of  agitation,  and  was  at 
last  sleeping.  He  wondered  at  the  force  that 
dwelt  in  this  creature,  so  alive  to  dread  ;  for  he 
had  an  irresistible  impression  that  even  under 
the  effects  of  a  severe  physical  shock  she  was 
mastering  herself  with  a  determination  of  con- 
cealment. For  his  own  part,  he  thought  that  his 
sensibilities  had  been  blunted  by  what  he  had 
been  going  through  in  the  meeting  with  his  moth- 
er :  he  seemed  to  himself  now  to  be  only  fulfilling 
claims,  and  his  more  passionate  sympathy  was  in 
abeyance.  He  had  lately  been  living  so  keenly 
in  an  experience  quite  apart  from  Gwendolen's 
lot  that  his  present  cares  for  her  were  like  a  re- 
visiting of  scenes  familiar  in  the  past,  and  there 
was  not  yet  a  complete  revival  of  the  inward  re- 
sponse to  them. 

Meanwhile  he  employed  himself  in  getting  a 
formal,  legally  recognized  statement  from  the 
fishermen  who  had  rescued  Gwendolen.  Few  de- 
tails came  to  light.  The  boat  in  which  Grand- 
court  had  gone  out  had  been  found  drifting  with 
its  sail  loose,  and  had  been  towed  in.  The  fisher- 
men thought  it  likely  that  he  had  been  knocked 
overboard  by  the  flapping  of  the  sail  while  put- 
ting about,  and  that  he  had  not  known  how  to 
swim  ;  but,  though  they  were  near,  their  attention 


had  been  first  arrested  by  a  cry  which  seemed  like 
that  of  a  man  in  distress,  and  while  they  were 
hastening  with  their  oars,  they  heard  a  shriek 
from  the  lady,  and  saw  her  jump  in. 

On  re-entering  the  hotel,  Deronda  was  told  that 
Gwendolen  had  risen,  and  was  desiring  to  see  him. 
He  was  shown  into  a  room  darkened  by  blinds 
and  curtains,  where  she  was  seated  with  a  white 
shawl  wrapped  round  her,  looking  toward  the 
opening  door  like  one  waiting  uneasily.  But  her 
long  hair  was  gathered  up  and  coiled  carefully, 
and,  through  all,  the  blue  stars  in  her  ears  had 
kept  their  place :  as  she  started  impulsively  to 
her  full  height,  sheathed  in  her  white  shawl,  her 
face  and  neck  not  less  white,  except  for  a  purple 
line  under  her  eyes,  her  lips  a  little  apart  with 
the  peculiar  expression  of  one  accused  and  help- 
less, she  looked  like  the  unhappy  ghost  of  that 
Gwendolen  Harleth  whom  Deronda  had  seen 
turning  with  firm  lips  and  proud  self-possession 
from  her  losses  at  the  gaming  table.  The  sight 
pierced  him  with  pity,  and  the  effects  of  all  their 
past  relation  began  to  revive  within  him. 

"  I  beseech  you  to  rest — not  to  stand,"  said 
Deronda,  as  he  approached  her ;  and  she  obeyed, 
falling  back  into  her  chair  again. 

"  Will  you  sit  down  near  me  ?"  she  said.  "  I 
want  to  speak  very  low." 

She  was  in  a  large  arm-chair,  and  he  drew  a 
small  one  near  to  her  side.  The  action  seemed 
to  touch  her  peculiarly:  turning  her  pale  face 
full  upon  his,  which  was  very  near,  she  said,  in 
the  lowest  audible  tone,  "  You  know  I  am  a 
guilty  woman  ?" 

Deronda  himself  turned  paler  as  he  said,  "  I 
know  nothing."  He  did  not  dare  to  say  more. 

"  He  is  dead."  She  uttered  this  with  the  same 
under-toned  decision. 

"  Yes,"  said  Deronda,  in  a  mournful  suspense 
which  made  him  reluctant  to  speak. 

"His  face  will  not  be  seen  above  the  water 
again,"  said  Gwendolen,  in  a  tone  that  was  not 
louder,  but  of  a  suppressed  eagerness,  while  she 
held  both  her  hands  clinched. 

"  No." 

"Not  by  any  one  else — only  by  me — a  dead 
face — I  shall  never  get  away  from  it." 

It  was  with  an  inward  voice  of  desperate  self- 
repression  that  she  spoke  these  last  words,  while 
she  looked  away  from  Deronda  toward  something 
at  a  distance  from  her  on  the  floor.  Was  she 
seeing  the  whole  event — her  own  acts  included 
— through  an  exaggerating  medium  of  excitement 
and  horror  ?  Was  she  in  a  state  of  delirium  into 
which  there  entered  a  sense  of  concealment  and 
necessity  for  self  -  repression  ?  Such  thoughts 
glanced  through  Deronda  as  a  sort  of  hope.  But 
imagine  the  conflict  of  feeling  that  kept  him  si- 
lent. She  was  bent  on  confession,  and  he  dread- 
ed hearing  her  confession.  Against  his  better 
will,  he  shrank  from  the  task  that  was  laid  on 
him:  he  wished,  and  yet  rebuked  the  wish  as 
cowardly,  that  she  should  bury  her  secrets  in  her 
own  bosom.  He  was  not  a  priest.  He  dreaded 
the  weight  of  this  woman's  soul  flung  upon  his 
own  with  imploring  dependence.  But  she  spoke 
again,  hurriedly,  looking  at  him : 

"You  will  not  say  that  I  ought  to  tell  the 
world  ?  you  will  not  say  that  I  ought  to  be  dis- 
graced ?  I  could  not  do  it  I  could  not  bear  it. 
I  can  not  have  my  mother  know.  Not  if  I  were 
dead.  I  could  not  have  her  know.  I  must  tell 


234 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


you;  but  you  will  not  say  that  any  one  else 
should  know." 

"I  can  say  nothing  in  my  ignorance,"  said 
Deronda,  mournfully,  "  except  that  I  desire  to 
help  you." 

"  I  told  you  from  the  beginning — as  soon  as  I 
could — I  told  you  I  was  afraid  of  myself."  There 
was  a  piteous  pleading  in  the  low  murmur  to 
which  Deronda  turned  his  ear  only.  Her  face 
afflicted  him  too  much.  "I  felt  a  hatred  in  me 
that  was  always  working  like  an  evil  spirit — con- 
triving things.  Every  thing  I  could  do  to  free 
myself  came  into  my  mind ;  and  it  got  worse — all 
things  got. worse.  That  was  why  I  asked  you  to 
come  to  me  in  town.  I  thought  then  I  would  tell 
you  the  worst  about  myself.  I  tried.  But  I 
could  not  tell  every  thing.  And  fie  came  in." 

She  paused,  while  a  shudder  passed  through 
her,  but  soon  went  on : 

"  I  will  tell  you  every  thing  now.  Do  you  think 
a  woman  who  cried  and  prayed  and  struggled  to 
be  saved  from  herself  could  be  a  murderess  ?" 

"  Great  God !"  said  Deronda,  in  a  deep,  shaken 
voice,  "  don't  torture  me  needlessly.  You  have 
not  murdered  him.  You  threw  yourself  into  the 
water  with  the  impulse  to  save  him.  Tell  me  the 
rest  afterward.  This  death  was  an  accident  that 
you  could  not  have  hindered." 

"  Don't  be  impatient  with  me."  The  tremor, 
the  child-like  beseeching  in  these  words  compelled 
Deronda  to  turn  his  head  and  look  at  her  face. 
The  poor  quivering  lips  went  on :  "  You  said — 
you  used  to  say — you  felt  more  for  those  who 
had  done  something  wicked  and  were  miserable ; 
you  said  they  might  get  better — they  might  be 
scourged  into  something  better.  If  you  had  not 
spoken  in  that  way,  every  thing  would  have  been 
worse.  I  did  remember  all  you  said  to  me.  It 
came  to  me  always.  It  came  to  me  at  the  very 
last — that  was  the  reason  why  I —  But  now,  if 
you  can  not  bear  with  me  when  I  tell  you  every 
thing — if  you  turn  away  from  me  and  forsake 
me,  what  shall  I  do  ?  Am  I  worse  than  I  was 
when  you  found  me  and  wanted  to  make  me  bet- 
ter ?  All  the  wrong  I  have  done  was  in  me  then 
— and  more — and  more — if  you  had  not.  come 
and  been  patient  with  me.  And  now — will  you 
forsake  me  ?" 

Her  hands,  which  had  been  so  tightly  clinched 
some  minutes  before,  were  now  helplessly  relax- 
ed and  trembling  on  the  arm  of  her  chair.  Her 
quivering  lips  remained  parted  as  she  ceased 
speaking.  Deronda  could  not  answer:  he  was 
obliged  to  look  away.  He  took  one  of  her  hands, 
and  clasped  it  as  if  they  were  going  to  walk  to- 
gether like  two  children :  it  was  the  only  way  in 
which  he  could  answer,  "  I  will  not  forsake  you." 
And  all  the  while  he  felt  as  if  he  were  putting 
his  name  to  a  blank  paper  which  might  be  filled 
up  terribly.  Their  attitude,  his  averted  face,  with 
its  expression  of  a  suffering  which  he  was  sol- 
emnly resolved  to  undergo,  might  have  told  half 
the  truth  of  the  situation  to  a  beholder  who  had 
suddenly  entered. 

That  grasp  was  an  entirely  new  experience  to 
Gwendolen :  she  had  never  before  had  from  any 
man  a  sign  of  tenderness  which  her  own  being 
had  needed,  and  she  interpreted  its  powerful  effect 
on  her  into  a  promise  of  inexhaustible  patience 
and  constancy.  The  stream  of  renewed  strength 
made  it  possible  for  her  to  go  on  as  she  had  be- 
gun— with  that  fitful,  wandering  confession  where 


the  sameness  of  experience  seems  to  nullify  the 
sense  of  time  or  of  order  in  events.  She  began 
again  in  a  fragmentary  way : 

"  All  sorts  of  contrivances  in  my  mind — but  all 
so  difficult.  And  I  fought  against  them — I  .was 
terrified  at  them — I  saw  his  dead  face" — here  her 
voice  sank  almost  to  a  whisper  close  to  Deronda's 
ear — "ever  so  long  ago  I  saw  it;  and  I  wished 
him  to  be  dead.  And  yet  it  terrified  me.  I  was 
like  two  creatures.  I  could  not  speak — I  want- 
ed to  kill — it  was  as  strong  as  thirst — and  then 
directly — I  felt  beforehand  I  had  done  something 
dreadful,  unalterable — that  would  make  me  like 
an  evil  spirit.  And  it  came — it  came." 

She  was  silent  a  moment  or  two,  as  if  her  mem- 
ory had  lost  itself  in  a  web  where  each  mesh 
drew  all  the  rest. 

"  It  had  all  been  in  my  mind  when  I  first  spoke 
to  you — when  we  were  at  the  Abbey.  I  had  done 
something  then.  I  could  not  tell  you  that.  It 
was  the  only  thing  I  did  toward  carrying  out  my 
thoughts.  They  went  about  over  every  thing ;  but 
they  all  remained  like  dreadful  dreams — all  but 
one.  I  did  one  act — and  I  never  undid  it — it  is 
there  still — as  long  ago  as  when  we  were  at  Rye- 
lands.  There  it  was — something  my  fingers  long- 
ed for  among  the  beautiful  toys  in  the  cabinet  in 
my  boudoir — small  and  sharp,  like  a  long  willow 
leaf  in  a  silver  sheath.  I  locked  it  in  the  drawer 
of  my  dressing-case.  I  was  continually  haunted 
with  it,  and  how  I  should  use  it.  I  fancied  myself 
putting  it  under  my  pillow.  But  I  never  did.  I 
never  looked  at  it  again.  I  dared  not  unlock 
the  drawer:  it  had  a  key  all  to  itself;  and  not 
long  ago,  when  we  were  in  the  yacht,  I  dropped 
the  key  into-  the  deep  water.  It  was  my  wish  to 
drop  it  and  deliver  myself.  After  that  I  began 
to  think  how  I  could  open  the  drawer  without  the 
key ;  and  when  I  found  we  were  to  stay  at  Genoa, 
it  came  into  my  mind  that  I  could  get  it  opened 
privately  at  the.  hotel.  But  then  when  we  were 
going  up  the  stairs,  I  met  you ;  and  I  thought  I 
should  talk  to  you  alone  and  tell  you  this — every 
thing  I  could  not  tell  you  in  town ;  and  then  I 
was  forced  to  go  out  in  the  boat." 

A  sob  had  for  the  first  time  risen  with  the  last 
words,  and  she  sank  back  in  her  chair.  The 
memory  of  that  acute  disappointment  seemed  for 
the  moment  to  efface  what  had  come  since.  De- 
ronda did  not  look  at  her,  but  he  said,  insistently, 

"  And  it  has  all  remained  in  your  imagination. 
It  has  gone  on  only  in  your  thought.  To  the  last 
the  evil  temptation  has  been  resisted  ?" 

There  was  silence.  The  tears  had  rolled  down 
her  cheeks.  She  pressed  her  handkerchief  against 
them  and  sat  upright.  She  was  summoning  her 
resolution;  and  again,  leaning  a  little  toward  De- 
ronda's ear,  she  began,  in  a  whisper ; 

"  No,  no ;  I  will  tell  you  every  thing  as  God 
knows  it.  I  will  tell  you  no  falsehood ;  I  will  tell 
you  the  exact  truth.  What  should  I  do  else  ?  I 
used  to  think  I  could  never  be  wicked.  I  thought 
of  wicked  people  as  if  they  were  a  long  way  off 
me.  Since  then  I  have  been  wicked.  I  have  felt 
wicked.  And  every  thing  has  been  a  punishment 
to  me — all  the  things  I  used  to  wish  for — it  is  as 
if  they  had  been  made  red-hot.  The  very  day- 
light has  often  been  a  punishment  to  me.  Be- 
cause— you  know — I  ought  not  to  have  married. 
That  was  the  beginning  of  it.  I  wronged  some 
one  else.  I  broke  my  promise.  I  meant  to  get 
pleasure  for  myself,  and  it  all  turned  to  misery.  I 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AXD   THE   SOX. 


wanted  to  make  my  gain  out  of  another's  loss — 
you  remember? — it  was  like  roulette — and  the 
money  burned  into  me.  And  I  could  not  complain. 
It  was  as  if  I  had  prayed  that  another  should  lose 
and  I  should  win.  And  I  had  won.  I  knew  it 
all — I  knew  I  was  guilty.  When  we  were  on  the 
sea,  and  I  lay  awake  at  night  in  the  cabin,  I  some- 
times felt  that  every  thing  I  had  done  lay  open 
without  excuse — nothing  was  hidden — how  could 
any  thing  be  known  to  me  only  ? — it  was  not  my 
own  knowledge,  it  was  God's  that  had  entered 
into  me ;  and  even  the  stillness — every  thing  held 
a  punishment  for  me — every  thing  but  you.  I 
always  thought  that  you  would  not  want  me  to  be 
punished — you  would  have  tried  and  helped  me 
to  be  better.  And  only  thinking  of  that  helped 
me.  You  will  not  change — you  will  not  want  to 
punish  me  now  ?" 

Again  a  sob  had  risen. 

"  God  forbid !"  groaned  Deronda.  But  he  sat 
motionless. 

This  long  wandering  with  the  poor  conscience- 
stricken  one  over  her  past  was  difficult  to  bear, 
but  he  dared  not  again  urge  her  with  a  question. 
He  must  let  her  mind  follow  its  own  need.  She 
unconsciously  left  intervals  in  her  retrospect,  not 
clearly  distinguishing  between  what  she  said  and 
what  she  had  only  an  inward  vision  of.  Her 
next  words  came  after  such  an  interval : 

"  That  all  made  it  so  hard  when  I  was  forced 
to  go  in  the  boat.  Because  when  I  saw  you,  it 
was  an  unexpected  joy,  and  I  thought  I  could 
tell  you  every  thing — about  the  locked-up  drawer 
and 'what  I  had  not  told  you  before.  And  if  I 
had  told  you,  and  knew  it  was  in  your  mind,  it 
would  have  less  power  over  me.  I  hoped  and 
trusted  in  that.  For  after  all  my  struggles  and 
my  crying,  the  hatred  and  rage,  the  temptation 
that  frightened  me,  the  longing,  the  thirst  for 
what  I  dreaded,  always  came  back.  And  that 
disappointment — when  I  was  quite  shut  out  from 
speaking  to  you,  and  I  was  driven  to  go  in  the 
boat — brought  all  the  evil  back,  as  if  I  had  been 
locked  in  a  prison  with  it  and  no  escape.  Oh, 
it  seems  so  long  ago  now  since  I  stepped  into 
that  boat !  I  could  have  given  up  every  thing 
in  that  moment  to  have  the  forked  lightning  for 
a  weapon  to  strike  him  dead." 

Some  of  the  compressed  fierceness  that  she 
was  recalling  seemed  to  find  its  way  into  her  un- 
der-toned utterance.  After  a  little  silence,  she 
said,  with  agitated  hurry, 

"If  he  were  here  again,  what  should  I  do?  I 
can  not  wish  him  here,  and  yet  I  can  not  bear 
his  dead  face.  I  was  a  coward.  I  ought  to  have 
borne  contempt.  I  ought  to  have  gone  away — 
gone  and  wandered  like  a  beggar  rather  than 
stay  to  feel  like  a  fiend.  But  turn  where  I  would, 
there  was  something  I  could  not  bear.  Some- 
times I  thought  he  would  kill  me  if  I  resisted  his 
will.  But  now — his  dead  face  is  there,  and  I  can 
not  bear  it." 

Suddenly  loosing  Deronda's  hand,  she  started 
up,  stretching  her  arms  to  their  full  length  up- 
ward, and  said,  with  a  sort  of  moan, 

"  I  have  been  a  cruel  woman  !  What  can  /  do 
but  cry  for  help  ?  /am  sinking.  Die — die — you 
are  forsaken — go  down,  go  down  into  darkness. 
Forsaken — no  pity — /shall  be  forsaken." 

She  sank  in  her  chair  again  and  broke  into 
sobs.  Even  Deronda  had  no  place  in  her  con- 
sciousness at  that  moment.  He  was  completely 


Instead  of  finding,  as  lie  had  imag' 
ined,  that  his  late  experience  had  dulled  his  sus- 
ceptibility to  fresh  emotion,  it  seemed  that  the 
lot  of  this  young  creature,  whose  swift  travel 
from  her  bright  rash  girlhood  into  this  agony  of 
remorse  he  had  had  to  behold  in  helplessness, 
pierced  him  the  deeper  because  it  came  close 
upon  another  sad  revelation  of  spiritual  conflict : 
he  was  in  one  of  those  moments  when  the  very 
anguish  of  passionate  pity  makes  us  ready  to 
choose  that  we  will  know  pleasure  no  more,  and 
live  only  for  the  stricken  and  afflicted.  He  had 
risen  from  his  seat  while  he  watched  that  terrible 
outburst — which  seemed  the  more  awful  to  him 
because,  even  in  this  supreme  agitation,  she  kept 
the  suppressed  voice  of  one  who  confesses  in 
secret.  At  last  he  felt  impelled  to  turn  his  back 
toward  her  and  walk  to  a  distance. 

But  presently  there  was  stillness.  Her  mind 
had  opened  to  the  sense  that  he  had  gone  away 
from  her.  When  Deronda  turned  round  to  ap- 
proach her  again,  he  saw  her  face  bent  toward 
him,  her  eyes  dilated,  her  lips  parted.  She  was 
an  image  of  timid  forlorn  beseeching — too  timid 
to  entreat  in  words  while  he  kept  himself  aloof 
from  her.  Was  she  forsaken  by  him — now — 
already?  But  his  eyes  met  hers  sorrowfully — 
met  hers  for  the  first  time  fully  since  she  had 
said,  "  You  know  I  am  a  guilty  woman ;"  and 
that  full  glance  in  its  intense  mournfulness  seem- 
ed to  say,  "  I  know  it,  but  I  shall  all  the  less  for- 
sake you."  He  sat  down  by  her  side  again  in  the 
same  attitude — without  turning  his  face  toward 
her  and  without  again  taking  her  hand. 

Once  more  Gwendolen  was  pierced,  as  she  had 
been  by  his  face  of  sorrow  at  the  Abbey,  with  a 
compunction  less  egoistic  than  that  which  urged 
her  to  confess,  and  she  said,  in  a  tone  of  loving 
regret, 

"  I  make  you  very  unhappy." 

Deronda  gave  an  indistinct  "  Oh,"  just  shrink- 
ing together  and  changing  his  attitude  a  little. 
Then  he  had  gathered  resolution  enough  to  say, 
clearly,  "  There  is  no  question  of  being  happy  or 
unhappy.  What  I  most  desire  at  this  moment  is 
what  will  most  help  you.  Tell  me  all  you  feel  it 
a  relief  to  tell." 

Devoted  as  these  words  were,  they  widened  his 
spiritual  distance  from  her,  and  she  felt  it  more 
difficult  to  speak :  she  had  'a  vague  need  of  get- 
ting nearer  to  that  compassion  which  seemed  to 
be  regarding  her  from  a  halo  of  superiority,  and 
the  need  turned  into  an  impulse  to  humble  her- 
self more.  She  was  ready  to  throw  herself  on 
her  knees  before  him  ;  but  no — her  wonderfully 
mixed  consciousness  held  checks  on  that  im- 
pulse, and  she  was  kept  silent  and  motionless  by 
the  pcessure  of  opposing  needs.  Her  stillness 
made  Deronda  at  last  say, 

"  Perhaps  you  are  too  weary.  Shall  I  go  away, 
and  come  again  whenever*you  wish  it  ?" 

"No,  no,"  said  Gwendolen,  the  dread  of  his 
leaving  her  bringing  back  her  power  of  speech. 
She  went  on  with  her  low-toned  eagerness:  "I 
want  to  tell  you  what  it  was  that  came  over  me 
in  that  boat.  I  was  full  of  rage  at  being  obliged 
to  go — full  of  rage— and  I  could  do  nothing  but 
sit  there  like  a  galley-slave.  And  then  we  got 
away — out  of  the  port — into  the  deep — and  ev- 
ery thing  was  still — and  we  never  looked  at  each 
other,  only  he  spoke  to  order  me — and  the  very 
light  about  me  seemed  to  hold  me  a  prisoner  and 


236 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


force  me  to  sit  as  I  did.  It  came  over  me  that 
when  I  was  a  child  I  used  to  fancy  sailing  away 
into  a  world  where  people  were  not  forced  to  live 
with  any  one  they  did  not  like — I  did  not  like 
my  step -father  to  come  home.  And  now,  I 
thought,  just  the  opposite  had  come  to  me.  I 
had  stepped  into  a  boat,  and  my  life  was  a  sailing 
and  sailing  away — gliding  on  and  no  help — al- 
ways into  solitude  with  him,  away  from  deliver- 
ance. And  because  I  felt  more  helpless  than 
ever,  my  thoughts  went  out  over  worse  things — 
I  longed  for  worse  things — I  had  cruel  wishes — I 
fancied  impossible  ways  of—  I  did  not  want  to 
die  myself ;  I  was  afraid  of  our  being  drowned 
together.  If  it  had  been  any  use  I  should  have 
prayed — I  should  have  prayed  that  something 
might  befall  him.  I  should  have  prayed  that  he 
might  sink  out  of  my  sight  and  leave  me  alone. 
I  knew  no  way  of  killing  him  there,  but  I  did,  I 
did  kill  him  in  my  thoughts." 

She  sank  into  silence  for  a  minute,  submerged 
by  the  weight  of  memory  which  no  words  could 
represent. 

"  But  yet  all  the  while  I  felt  that  I  was  getting 
more  wicked.  And  what  had  been  with  me  so 
much,  came  to  me  just  then — what  you  once  said 
— about  dreading  to  increase  my  wrong-doing  and 
my  remorse — I  should  hope  for  nothing  then.  It 
was  all  like  a  writing  of  fire  within  me.  Getting 
wicked  was  misery — being  shut  out  forever  from 
knowing  what  you — what  better  lives  were.  That 
had  always  been  coming  back  to  me  in  the  midst 
of  bad  thoughts — it  came  back  to  me  then — but 
yet  with  a  despair — a  feeling  that  it  was  no  use 
— evil  wishes  were  too  strong.  I  remember  then 
letting  go  the  tiller,  and  saying, '  God  help  me !' 
But  then  I  was  forced  to  take  it  again  and  go  on  ; 
and  the  evil  longings,  the  evil  prayers  came  again 
and  blotted  every  thing  else  dim,  till,  in  the  midst 
of  them — I  don't  know  how  it  was — he  was  turn- 
ing the  sail — there  was  a  gust — he  was  struck — I 
know  nothing — I  only  know  that  I  saw  my  wish 
outside  me." 

She  began  to  speak  more  hurriedly,  and  in  more 
of  a  whisper : 

"  I  saw  him  sink,  and  my  heart  gave  a  leap  as 
if  it  were  going  out  of  me.  I  think  I  did  not 
move.  I  kept  my  hands  tight.  It  was  long 
enough  for  me  to  be  glad,  and  yet  to  think  it  was 
no  use — he  would  come  up  again.  And  he  was 
come — farther  off — the  boat  had  moved.  It  was 
all  like  lightning.  '  The  rope !'  he  called  out  in 
a  voice — not  his  own — I  hear  it  now — and  I 
stooped  for  the  rope — I  felt  I  must — I  felt  sure 
he  could  swim,  and  he  would  come  back  whether 
or  not,  and  I  dreaded  him.  That  was  in  my  mind 
—he  would  come  back.  But  he  was  gone  down 
again,  and  I  had  the  rope  in  my  hand — no,  there 
he  was  again — his  face  above  the  water — and  he 
cried  again — and  I  held  my  hand,  and  my  heart 
said, '  Die !'— and  he  sank ;  and  I  felt, '  It  is  done 
— I  am  wicked,  I  am  lost !' — and  I  had  the  rope 
in  my  hand — I  don't  know  what  I  thought — I 
was  leaping  away  from  myself — I  would  have 
saved  him  then.  I  was  leaping  from  my  crime, 
and  there  it  was — close  to  me  as  I  fell — there 
was  the  dead  face — dead,  dead.  It  can  never  be 
altered.  That  was  what  happened.  That  was 
what  I  did.  You  know  it  all.  It  can  never  be 
altered." 

She  sank  back  in  her  chair,  exhausted  with 
the  agitation  of  memory  and  speech.  Deronda 


felt  the  burden  on  his  spirit  less  heavy  than  the 
foregoing  dread.  The  word  "  guilty"  had  held  a 
possibility  of  interpretations  worse  than  the  fact ; 
and  Gwendolen's  confession,  for  the  very  reason 
that  her  conscience  made  her  dwell  on  the  de- 
termining power  of  her  evil  thoughts,  convinced 
him  the  more  that  there  had  been  throughout  a 
counterbalancing  struggle  of  her  better  will.  It 
seemed  almost  certain  that  her  murderous  thought 
had  had  no  outward  effect — that,  quite  apart  from 
it,  the  death  was  inevitable.  Still,  a  question  as 
to  the  outward  effectiveness  of  a  criminal  desire 
dominant  enough  to  impel  even  a  momentary  act 
can  not  alter  our  judgment  of  the  desire ;  and 
Deronda  shrank  from  putting  that  question  for- 
ward in  the  first  instance.  He  held  it  likely  that 
Gwendolen's  remorse  aggravated  her  inward  guilt, 
and  that  she  gave  the  character  of  decisive  action 
to  what  had  been  an  inappreciably  instantaneous 
glance  of  desire.  But  her  remorse  was  the  pre- 
cious sign  of  a  recoverable  nature ;  it  was  the 
culmination  of  that  self-disapproval  which  had 
been  the  awakening  of  a  new  life  within  her ;  it 
marked  her  off  from  the  criminals  whose  only 
regret  is  failure  in  securing  their  evil  wish.  De- 
ronda could  not  utter  one  word  to  diminish  that 
sacred  aversion  to  her  worst  self  —  that  thorn 
pressure  which  must  come  with  the  crowning  of 
the  sorrowful  Better,  suffering  because  of  the 
Worse.  All  this  mingled  thought  and  feeling 
kept  him  silent:  speech  was  too  momentous  to 
be  ventured  on  rashly.  There  were  no  words  of 
comfort  that  did  not  carry  some  sacrilege.  If  he 
had  opened  his  lips  to  speak,  he  could  only  have 
echoed,  "  It  can  never  be  altered — it  remains  un- 
altered, to  alter  other  things."  But  he  was  silent 
and  motionless — he  did  not  know  how  long — be- 
fore he  turned  to  look  at  her,  and  saw  her  sunk 
back  with  closed  eyes,  like  a  lost,  weary,  storm- 
beaten  white  doe,  unable  to  rise  and  pursue  its 
unguided  way.  He  rose  and  stood  before  her. 
The  movement  touched  her  consciousness,  and 
she  opened  her  eyes  with  a  slight  quivering  that 
seemed  like  fear. 

"  You  must  rest  now.  Try  to  rest ;  try  to  sleep. 
And  may  I  see  you  again  this  evening — to-mor- 
row— when  you  have  had  some  rest  ?  Let  us  say 
no  more  now." 

The  tears  came,  and  she  could  not  answer  ex- 
cept by  a  slight  movement  of  the  head.  Derouda 
rang  for  attendance,  spoke  urgently  of  the  neces- 
sity that  she  should  be  got  to  rest,  and  then  left 
her. 


CHAPTER  LVII. 

"The  unripe  grape,  the  ripe,  and  the  dried.  All 
things  are  changes,  not  into  nothing,  but  into  that 
which  la  not  at  present." — MABOCS  ACBELICS. 

Deeds  ore  the  pnlse  of  Time,  his  beating  life, 
And  righteous  or  unrighteous,  being  done, 
Must  throb  in  after-throbs  till  Time  itbelf 
Be  laid  in  stillness,  and  the  universe 
Quiver  and  breathe  upon  no  mirror  more. 

IN  the  evening  she  sent  for  him  again.  It  was 
already  near  the  hour  at  which  she  had  been 
brought  in  from  the  sea  the  evening  before,  and 
the  light  was  subdued  enough  with  blinds  drawn 
up  and  windows  open.  She  was  seated  gazing 
fixedly  on  the  sea,  resting  her  cheek  on  her  hand, 
looking  less  shattered  than  when  he  had  left  her, 
but  with  a  deep  melancholy  in  her  expression 


BOOK  VII.— THE   MOTHER  AND   THE  SOX. 


which,  as  Deronda  approached  her,  passed  into  an 
anxious  timidity.  She  did  not  put  out  her  hand, 
but  said,  "  How  long  ago  it  is  !"  Then,  "  Will 
you  sit  near  me  again  a  little  while  ?" 

He  placed  himself  by  her  side  as  he  had  done 
before,  and  seeing  that  she  turned  to  him  with 
that  indefinable  expression  which  implies  a  wish 
to  say  something,  he  waited  for  her  to  speak. 
But  again  she  looked  toward  the  window  silently, 
and  again  turned  with  the  same  expression,  which 
yet  did  not  issue  in  speech.  There  was  some  fear 
hindering  her,  and  Deronda,  wishing  to  relieve 
her  timidity,  averted  his  face.  Presently  he 
heard  her  cry,  imploringly, 

You  will"  not  say  that  any  one  else  should 


know?" 

"Most  decidedly  not,"  said  Deronda. 


There 


is  no  action  that  ought  to  be  taken  in  conse- 
quence. There  is  no  injury  that  could  be  right- 
ed in  that  way.  There  is  no  retribution  that  any 
mortal  could  apportion  justly." 

She  was  so  still  during  a  pause  that  she  seem- 
ed to  be  holding  her  breath  before  she  said, 

"  But  if  I  had  not  had  that  murderous  will  — 
that  moment  —  if  I  had  thrown  the  rope  on  the 
instant  —  perhaps  it  would  have  hindered  death  ?" 

"  No  —  I  think  not,"  said  Deronda,  slowly.  "  If 
it  were  true  that  he  could  swim,  he  must  have  been 
seized  with  cramp.  With  your  quickest,  utmost 


not  believe  that  I  can  become  any  better — worth 
any  thing — worthy  enough — I  shall  always  be  too 
wicked  to — "  The  voice  broke  off  helpless. 

Deronda's  heart  was  pierced.  He  turned  his 
eyes  on  her  poor  beseeching  face,  and  said,  "  I 
believe  that  you  may  become  worthier  than  you 
have  ever  yet  been — worthy  to  lead  a  life  that 
may  be  a  blessing.  No  evil  dooms  us  hopelessly 
except  the  evil  we  love,  and  desire  to  continue  in, 
and  make  no  effort  to  escape  from.  You  have 
made  efforts — you  will  go  on  making  them." 

"  But  you  were  the  beginning  of  them.  You 
must  not  forsake  me,"  said  Gwendolen,  leaning 
with  her  clasped  hands  on  the  arm  of  her  chair 
and  looking  at  him,  while  her  face  bore  piteous 
traces  of  the  life-experience  concentrated  in  the 
twenty-four  hours — that  new  terrible  life  lying  on 
the  other  side  of  the  deed  which  fulfills  a  criminal 
desire.  "I  will  bear  any  penance.  I  will  lead 
any  life  you  tell  me.  But  you  must  not  forsake 
me.  You  must  be  near.  If  you  had  been  near 
me — if  I  could  have  said  every  thing  to  you,  I 
should  have  been  different.  You  will  not  forsake 
me?" 

"  It  could  never  be  my  impulse  to  forsake  you," 
said  Deronda,  promptly,  with  that  voice  which, 
like  his  eyes,  had  the  unintentional  effect  of 
making  his  ready  sympathy  seem  more  personal 
and  special  than  it  really  was.  And  in  that  mo- 


effort,  it  seems  impossible  that  you  could  have    ment  he  was  not  himself  quite  free  from  a  fore- 
done  any  thing  to  save  him.     That  momentary    boding  of  some  such  self-committing  effect.     His 


murderous  will  can  not,  I  think,  have  altered  the 
course  of  events.     Its  effect  is  confined  to  the 


motives  in  your 


own  breast.     Within  ourselves 


our  evil  will  is  momentous,  and  sooner  or  later  it 
works  its  way  outside  us — it  may  be  in  the  viti- 
ation that  breeds  evil  acts,  but  also  it  may  be 
in  the  self-abhorrence  that  stings  us  into  better 
striving." 

"  I  am  saved  from  robbing  others — there  are 
others — they  will  have  every  thing — they  will 
have  what  they  ought  to  have.  I  knew  that 
some  time  before  I  left  town.  You  do  not  sus- 
pect me  of  wrong  desires  about  those  things  ?" 
She  spoke  hesitatingly. 

"  I  had  not  thought  of  them,"  said  Deronda ; 
"  I  was  thinking  too  much  of  the  other  things." 

"  Perhaps  you  don't  quite  know  the  beginning 
of  it  all,"  said  Gwendolen,  slowly,  as  if  she  were 
overcoming  her  reluctance.  "  There  was  some 
one  else  he  ought  to  have  married.  And  I  knew 
it,  and  I  told  her  I  would  not  hinder  it.  And  I 
went  away — that  was  when  you  first  saw  me.  But 
then  we  became  poor  all  at  once,  and  I  was  very 
miserable,  and  I  was  tempted.  I  thought,  'I 
shall  do  as  I  like,  and  make  every  thing  right.'  I 
persuaded  myself.  And  it  was  all  different.  It 
was  all  dreadful.  Then  came  hatred  and  wicked 
thoughts.  That  was  how  it  all  came.  I  told  you 
I  was  afraid  of  myself.  And  I  did  what  you  told 
me — I  did  try  to  make  my  fear  a  safeguard.  I 
thought  of  what  would  be  if  I—  I  felt  what 
would  come — how  I  should  dread  the  morning — 
wishing  it  would  be  always  night — and  yet  in  the 
darkness  always  seeing  something — seeing  death. 
If  you  did  not  know  how  miserable  I  was,  you 
might — but  now  it  has  all  been  no  use.  I  can 
care  for  nothing  but  saving  the  rest  from  know- 
ing— poor  mamma,  who  has  never  been  happy." 

There  was  silence  again  before  she  said,  with  a 
repressed  sob,  "  You  can  not  bear  to  look  at  me 
anv  more.  You  think  I  am  too  wicked.  You  do 


strong  feeling  for  this  stricken  creature  could  not 
hinder  rushing  images  of  future  difficulty.  He 
continued  to  meet  her  appealing  eyes  as  he  spoke, 
but  it  was  with  the  painful  consciousness  that  to 
her  ear  his  words  might  carry  a  promise  which 
one  day  would  seem  unfulfilled  :  he  was  making 
an  indefinite  promise  to  an  indefinite  hope.  Anx- 
ieties, both  immediate  and  distant,  crowded  on  his 
thought,  and  it  was  under  their  influence  that, 
after  a  moment's  silence,  he  said, 

"  I  expect  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  to  arrive  by  to- 
morrow night  at  least  ;  and  I  am  not  without  hope 
that  Mrs.  Davilow  may  shortly  follow  him.  Her 
presence  will  be  the  greatest  comfort  to  you  —  it 
will  give  you  a  motive,  to  save  her  from  unneces- 
sary pain." 

"  Yes,  yes  —  I  will  try.  And  you  will  not  go 
away  ?" 

"Not  till  after  Sir  Hugo  has  come." 

"  But  we  shall  all  go  to  England  ?" 

"  As  soon  as  possible,"  said  Deronda,  not  wish- 
ing to  enter  into  particulars. 

Gwendolen  looked  toward  the  window  again 
with  an  expression  which  seemed  like  a  gradual 
awakening  to  new  thoughts.  The  twilight  was 
perceptibly  deepening,  but  Deronda  could  see  a 
movement  in  her  eyes  and  hands  such  as  accom- 
pany a  return  of  perception  in  one  who  has  been 
stunned. 

"  You  will  always  be  with  Sir  Hugo  now  ?"  she 
said,  presently,  looking  at  him.  "  You  will  always 
live  at  the  Abbey  —  or  else  at  Diplow  ?" 

"  I  am  quite  uncertain  where  I  shall  live,"  said 
Deronda,  coloring. 

She  was  warned  by  his  changed  color  that  she 
had  spoken  too  rashly,  and  fell  silent.  After  a 
little  while  she  began,  again  looking  away, 

"  It  is  impossible  to  think  how  my  life  will 
on.  I  think  now  it  would  be  better  for  me  to 
poor  and  obliged  to  work." 

"  New  promptings  will  come  as  the  days  pass. 


go 
be 


238 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


When  you  are  among  your  friends  again,  you 
will  discern  new  duties,"  said  Deronda.  "  Make 
it  a  task  now  to  get  as  well  and  calm — as  much 
like  yourself  as  you  can,  before — "  He  hesi- 
tated. 

"Before  my  mother  comes,"  said  Gwendolen. 
"  Ah !  I  must  be  changed.  I  have  not  looked  at 
myself.  Should  you  have  known  me,"  she  added, 
turning  toward  him,  "  if  you  had  met  me  now  ? — 
should  you  have  known  me  for  the  one  you  saw 
at  Leubronn  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  should  have  known  you,"  said  Deron- 
da, mournfully.  "The  outside  change  is  not 
great.  I  should  have  seen  at  once  that  it  was 
you,  and  that  you  had  gone  through  some  great 
sorrow." 

"  Don't  wish  now  that  you  had  never  seen  me 
— don't  wish  that,"  said  Gwendolen,  imploringly, 
while  the  tears  gathered. 

"  I  should  despise  myself  for  wishing  it,"  said 
Derouda.  "  How  could  I  know  what  I  was  wish- 
ing ?  We  must  find  our  duties  in  what  comes  to 
us,  not  in  what  we  imagine  might  have  been.  If 


I  took  to  foolish  wishing  of  that  sort,  I  should 
wish,  not  that  I  had  never  seen  you,  but  that  I 
had  been  able  to  save  you  from  this." 

"  You  have  saved  me  from  worse,"  said  Gwen- 
dolen, in  a  sobbing  voice.  "  I  should  have  been 
worse,  if  it  had  not  been  for  you.  If  you  had 
not  been  good,  I  should  have  been  more  wicked 
than  I  am." 

"  It  will  be  better  for  me  to  go  now,"  said 
Deronda,  worn  in  spirit  by  the  perpetual  strain 
of  this  scene.  "  Remember  what  we  said  of  your 
task— to  get  well  and  calm  before  other  friends 
come." 

He  rose  as  he  spoke,  and  she  gave  him  her 
hand  submissively.  But  when  he  had  left  her 
she  sank  on  her  knees,  in  hysterical  crying.  The 
distance  between  them  was  too  great.  She  was 
a  banished  soul — beholding  a  possible  life  which 
she  had  sinned  herself  away  from. 

She  was  found  in  this  way,  crushed  on  the 
floor.  Such  grief  seemed  natural  in  a  poor 
lady  whose  husband  had  been  drowned  in  her 
presence. 


BOOK   VIIL— FRUIT  AND    SEED. 


CHAPTER  LVIII. 

"Much  adoe  there  was,  God  wot; 
He  wold  love  and  she  wold  not." 

—NICHOLAS  BBBTON. 

EXTENSION,  we  know,  is  a  very  imperfect 
measure  of  things ;  and  the  length  of  the  sun's 
journeying  can  no  more  tell  us  how  far  life  has 
advanced  than  the  acreage  of  a  field  can  tell  us 
what  growths  may  be  active  within  it.  A  man 
may  go  south,  and,  stumbling  over  a  bone,  may 
meditate  upon  it  till  he  has  found  a  new  starting- 
point  for  anatomy ;  or  eastward,  and  discover"  a 
new  key  to  language  telling  a  new  story  of  races ; 
or  he  may  head  an  expedition  that  opens  new 
continental  pathways,  get  himself  maimed  in 
body,  and  go  through  a  whole  heroic  poem  of  re- 
solve and  endurance;  and  at  the  end  of  a  few 
months  he  may  come  back  to  find  his  neighbors 
grumbling  at  the  same  parish  grievance  as  be- 
fore, or  to  see  the  same  elderly  gentleman  tread- 
ing the  pavement  in  discourse  with  himself,  shak- 
ing his  head  after  the  same  percussive  butcher's 
boy,  and  pausing  at  the  same  shop  window  to 
look  at  the  same  prints.  If  the  swiftest  think- 
ing has  about  the  pace  of  a  greyhound,  the  slow- 
est must  be  supposed  to  move,  like  the  limpet, 
by  an  apparent  sticking,  which  after  a  good 
while  is  discerned  to  be  a  slight  progression. 
Such  differences  are  manifest  in  the  variable  in- 
tensity which  we  call  human  experience,  from 
the  revolutionary  rush  of  change  which  makes  a 
new  inner  and  outer  life,  to  that  quiet  recurrence 
of  the  familiar,  which  has  no  other  epochs  than 
those  of  hunger  and  the  heavens. 

Something  of  this  contrast  was  seen  in  the 
year's  experience  which  had  turned  the  brilliant, 
self-confident  Gwendolen  Harleth  of  the  Archery 
Meeting  into  the  crushed  penitent  impelled  to 
confess  her  unworthiness  where  it  would  have 
been  her  happiness  to  be  held  worthy ;  while  it 
had  left  her  family  in  Pennicote  without  deeper 
change  than  that  of  some  outward  habits,  and 
Boine  adjustment  of  prospects  and  intentions  to 


reduced  income,  fewer  visits,  and  fainter  compli- 
ments. The  Rectory  was  as  pleasant  a  home  as 
before:  the  red  and  pink  peonies  on  the  lawn, 
the  rows  of  hollyhocks  by  the  hedges,  had  bloom- 
ed as  well  this  year  as  last ;  the  Rector  maintain- 
ed his  cheerful  confidence  in  the  good-will  of  pa- 
trons, and  his  resolution  to  deserve  it  by  diligence 
in  the  fulfillment  of  his  duties,  whether  patrons 
were  likely  to  hear  of  it  or  not:  doing  nothing 
solely  with  an  eye  to  promotion,  except,  perhaps, 
the  writing  of  two  ecclesiastical  articles,  which, 
having  no  signature,  were  attributed  to  seme  one 
else,  except  by  the  patrons,  who  had  a  special 
copy  sent  them,  and  these  certainly  knew  the  au- 
thor, but  did  not  read  the  articles.  The  Rector, 
however,  chewed  no  poisonous  cud  of  suspicion 
on  this  point:  he  made  marginal  notes  on  his 
own  copies  to  render  them  a  more  interesting 
loan,  and  was  gratified  that  the  Archdeacon  and 
other  authorities  had  nothing  to  say  against  the 
general  tenor  of  his  argument.  Peaceful  author- 
ship ! — living  in  the  air  of  the  fields  and  downs, 
and  not  in  the  thrice-breathed  breath  of  criticism 
— bringing  no  Dantesquc  leanness ;  rather,  assist- 
ing nutrition  by  complacency,  and  perhaps  giving 
a  more  suffusive  sense  of  achievement  than  the 
production  of  a  whole  Divina  Commedia.  Then 
there  was  the  father's  recovered  delight  in  his 
favorite  son,  which  was  a  happiness  outweighing 
the  loss  of  eighteen  hundred  a  year.  Of  what- 
ever nature  might  be  the  hidden  change  wrought 
in  Rex  by  the  disappointment  of  his  first  love,  it 
was  apparently  quite  secondary  to  that  evidence 
of  more  serious  ambition  which  dated  from  the 
family  misfortune ;  indeed,  Mr.  Gascoigne  was  in- 
clined to  regard  the  little  affair  which  had  caused 
him  so  much  anxiety  the  year  before  as  an  evap- 
oration of  superfluous  moisture,  a  kind  of  finish 
to  the  baking  process  which  the  human  dough 
demands.  Rex  had  lately  come  down  for  a  sum- 
mer visit  to  the  Rectory,  bringing  Anna  home, 
and  while  he  showed  nearly  the  old  liveliness 
with  his  brothers  and  sisters,  he  continued  in  hia 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


holiday  the  habits  of  the  eager  student,  rising 
early  in  the  morning  and  shutting  himself  up 
early  in  the  evenings  to  carry  on  a  fixed  course 
of  study. 

"  You  don't  repent  the  choice  of  the  law  as  a 
profession,  Rex?"  said  his  father. 

"  There  is  no  profession  I  would  choose  before 
it,"  said  Rex.  "  I  should  like  to  end  my  life  as 
a  first-rate  judge,  and  help  to  draw  up  a  code.  I 
reverse  the  famous  dictum — 1  should  say,  'Give 
me  something  to  do  with  making  the  laws,  and 
let  who  will  make  the  songs.'  " 

"  You  will  have  to  stow  in  an  immense  amount 
of  rubbish,  I  suppose— that's  the  worst  of  it,"  said 
the  Rector. 

"  I  don't  see  that  law  rubbish  is  worse  than  any 
other  sort.  It  is  not  so  bad  as  the  rubbishy  lit- 
erature that  people  choke  their  minds  with.  It 
doesn't  make  one  so  dull.  Our  wittiest  men  have 
often  been  lawyers.  Any  orderly  way  of  looking 
at  things  as  cases  and  evidence  seems  to  me  bet- 
ter than  a  perpetual  wash  of  odds  and  ends  bear- 
ing on  nothing  in  particular.  And  then,  from  a 
higher  point  of  view,  the  foundations  and  the 
growth  of  law  make  the  most  interesting  aspects 
of  philosophy  and  history.  Of  course  there  will 
be  a  good  deal  that  is  troublesome,  drudging,  per- 
haps exasperating.  But  the  great  prizes  in  life 
can't  be  won  easily — I  see  that." 

"Well,  my  boy,  the  best  augury  of  a  man's 
success  in  his  profession  is  that  he  thinks  it  the 
finest  in  the  world.  But  I  fancy  it  is  so  with 
most  work  when  a  man  goes  into  it  with  a  will. 
Brewitt,  the  blacksmith,  said  to  me  the  other  day 
that  his  'prentice  had  no  mind  to  his  trade ;  '  and 
yet,  Sir,'  said  Brewitt, '  what  would  a  young  fellow 
have  if  he  doesn't  like  the  blacksmithing  ?' " 

The  Rector  cherished  a  fatherly  delight,  which 
he  allowed  to  escape  him  only  in  moderation. 
Warham,  who  had  gone  to  India,  he  had  easily 
borne  parting  with,  but  Rex  was  that  romance  of 
later  life  which  a  man  sometimes  finds  in  a  son 
whom  he  recognizes  as  superior  to  himself,  pic- 
turing a  future  eminence  for  him  according  to  a 
variety  of  famous  examples.  It  was  only  to  his 
wife  that  he  said,  with  decision,  "  Rex  will  be  a 
distinguished  man,  Nancy,  I  am  sure  of  it — as 
sure  as  Paley's  father  was  about  his  son." 

"  Was  Paley  an  old  bachelor  ?"  said  Mrs.  Gas- 
coigne. 

"  That  is  hardly  to  the  point,  my  dear,"  said 
the  Rector,  who  did  not  remember  that  irrelevant 
detail.  And  Mrs.  Gascoigne  felt  that  she  had 
spoken  rather  weakly. 

This  quiet  trotting  of  time  at  the  Rectory  was 
shared  by  the  group  who  had  exchanged  the 
faded  dignity  of  Offendene  for  the  low  white 
house  not  a  mile  off,  well  inclosed  with  ever- 
greens, and  known  to  the  villagers  as  "  Jodson's." 
Mrs.  Davilow's  delicate  face  showed  only  a  slight 
deepening  of  its  mild  melancholy,  her  hair  only  a 
few  more  silver  lines,  in  consequence  of  the  last 
year's  trials ;  the  four  girls  had  bloomed  out  a 
little  from  being  less  in  the  shade ;  and  the  good 
Jocosa  preserved  her  serviceable  neutrality  toward 
the  pleasures  and  glories  of  the  world  as  things 
made  for  those  who  were  not  "  in  a  situation." 

The  low  narrow  drawing-room,  enlarged  by 
two  quaint  projecting  windows,  with  lattices  wide 
open  on  a  July  afternoon  to  the  scent  of  month- 
ly roses,  the  faint  murmurs  of  the  garden,  and 
the  occasional  rare  sound  of  hoofs  and  wheels 


seeming  to  clarify  the  succeeding  silence,  made 
rather  a  crowded  lively  scene,  Rex  and  Anna 
being  added  to  the  usual  group  of  six.  Anna, 
always  a  favorite  with  her  younger  cousins,  had 
much  to  tell  of  her  new  experience,  and  the  ac- 
quaintances she  had  made  in  London ;  and  when 
on  her  first  visit  she  came  alone,  many  questions 
were  asked  her  about  Gwendolen's  house  in 
Grosvenor  Square,  what  Gwendolen  herself  had 
said,  and  what  any  one  else  h^d  said  about  Gwen- 
dolen. Had  Anna  been  to  see  Gwendolen  after 
she  had  known  about  the  yacht  ?  No :  an  an- 
swer which  left  speculation  free  concerning  ev- 
ery thing  connected  with  that  interesting  un- 
known vessel  beyond  the  fact  that  Gwendolen 
had  written  just  before  she  set  out  to  say  that 
Mr.  Grandcourt  and  she  were  going  yachting  in 
the  Mediterranean,  and  again  from  Marseilles  to 
say  that  she  was  sure  to  like  the  yachting,  the 
cabins  were  very  elegant,  and  she  would  probably 
not  send  another  letter  till  she  had  written  quite 
a  long  diary  filled  with  dittos.  Also,  this  move- 
ment of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Grandcourt  had  been  men- 
tioned in  "the  newspaper;"  so  that  altogether 
this  new  phase  of  Gwendolen's  exalted  life  made 
a  striking  part  of  the  sisters'  romance,  the  book- 
devouring  Isabel  throwing  in  a  Corsair  or  two  to 
make  an  adventure  that  might  end  well. 

But  when  Rex  was  present,  the  girls,  accord- 
ing to  instructions,  never  started  this  fascinating 
topic ;  and  to-day  there  had  only  been  animated 
descriptions  of  the  Meyricks  and  their  extraordi- 
nary Jewish  friends,  which  caused  some  aston- 
ished questioning  from  minds  to  which  the  idea 
of  live  Jews,  out  of  a  book,  suggested  a  differ- 
ence deep  enough  to  be  almost  zoological,  as  of 
a  strange  race  in  Pliny's  Natural  History  that 
might  sleep  under  the  shade  of  its  own  ears. 
Bertha  could  not  imagine  what  Jews  believed 
now ;  and  had  a  dim  idea  that  they  rejected  the 
Old  Testament,  since  it  proved  the  New ;  Miss 
Merry  thought  that  Mirah  and  her  brother  could 
never  have  been  properly  argued  with,"  and  the 
amiable  Alice  did  not  mind  what  the  Jews  be- 
lieved, she  was  sure  she  "couldn't  bear  them." 
Mrs.  Davilow  corrected  her  by  saying  that  the 
great  Jewish  families  who  were  in  society  were 
quite  what  they  ought  to  be  both  in  London  and 
Paris,  but  admitted  that  the  commoner  uncon- 
erted  Jews  were  objectionable ;  and  Isabel  ask- 
ed whether  Mirah  talked  just  as  they  did,  or 
whether  you  might  be  with  her  and  not  find  out 
that  she  was  a  Jewess. 

Rex,  who  had  no  partisanship  with  the  Israel- 
ites, having  made  a  troublesome  acquaintance 
with  the  minutiae  of  their  ancient  history  in  the 
form  of  "  cram,"  was  amusing  himself  by  play- 
fully exaggerating  the  notion  of  each  speaker, 
while  Anna  begged  them  all  to  understand  that 
he  was  only  joking,  when  the  laughter  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  bringing  in  of  a  letter  for  Mrs. 
Davilow.  A  messenger  had  run  with  it  in  great 
haste  from  the  Rectory.  It  inclosed  a  telegram, 
and  as  Mrs.  Davilow  read  and  re-read  it  in  si- 
lence and  agitation,  all  eyes  were  turned  on  her 
with  anxiety,  but  no  one  dared  to  speak.  Look- 
ng  up  at  last  and  seeing  the  young  faces  "paint- 
ed with  fear,"  she  remembered  that  they  might 
be  imagining  something  worse  than  the  truth, 
something  like  her  own  first  dread  which  made 
her  unable  to  understand  what  was  written,  and 
she  said,  with  a  sob  which  was  half  relief, 


240 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"My  dears,  Mr.  Grandcourt — "  She  paused 
an  instant,  and  then  began  again — "  Mr.  Grand- 
court  is  drowned." 

Rex  started  up  as  if  a  missile  had  been  sud- 
denly thrown  into  the  room.  He  could  not  help 
himself,  and  Anna's  first  look  was  at  him.  But 
then,  gathering  some  self-command  while  Mrs. 
Davilow  was  reading  what  the  Rector  had  writ- 
ten on  the  inclosing  paper,  he  said, 

"  Can  I  do  any  thing,  aunt  ?  Can  I  carry  any 
word  to  my  father  from  you  ?" 

"  Yes,  dear.  Tell  him  I  will  be  ready — he  is 
very  good.  He  says  he  will  go  with  me  to  Gen- 
oa— he  will  be  here  at  half  past  six.  Jocosa 
and  Alice,  help  me  to  get  ready.  She  is  safe — 
Gwendolen  is  safe — but  she  must  be  ill.  I  am 
sure  she  must  be  very  ill.  Rex  dear — Rex  and 
Anna — go  and  tell  your  father  I  will  be  quite 
ready.  I  would  not  for  the  world  lose  another 
night.  And  bless  him  for  being  ready  so  soon. 
I  can  travel  night  and  day  till  we  get  there." 

Rex  and  Anna  hurried  away  through  the  sun- 
shine which  was  suddenly  solemn  to  them,  with- 
out uttering  a  word  to  each  other ;  she  chiefly 
possessed  by  solicitude  about  any  re-opening  of 
his  wound,  he  struggling  with  a  tumultuary  crowd 
of  thoughts  that  were  an  offense  against  his  bet- 
ter will.  The  oppression  being  undiminished 
when  they  were  at  the  Rectory  gate,  he  said, 

"  Nannie,  I  will  leave  you  to  say  every  thing  to 
my  father.  If  he  wants  me  immediately,  let  me 
know.  I  shall  stay  in  the  shrubbery  for  ten  min- 
utes—only ten  minutes." 

Who  has  been  quite  free  from  egoistic  escapes 
of  the  imagination  picturing  desirable  conse- 
quences on  his  own  future  in  the  presence  of  an- 
other's misfortune,  sorrow,  or  death  ?  The  ex- 
pected promotion  or  legacy  is  the  common  type 
of  a  temptation  which  makes  speech  and  even 
prayer  a  severe  avoidance  of  the  most  insistent 
thoughts,  and  sometimes  raises  an  inward  shame, 
a  self-distaste,  that  is  worse  than  any  other  form 
of  unpleasant  companionship.  In  Rex's  nature 
the  shame  was  immediate,  and  overspread  like  an 
ugly  light  all  the  hurrying  images  of  what  might 
come,  which  thrust  themselves  in  with  the  idea 
that  Gwendolen  was  again  free— overspread  them, 
perhaps,  the  more  persistently  because  every  phan- 
tasm of  a  hope  was  quickly  nullified  by  a  more 
substantial  obstacle.  Before  the  vision  of  "  Gwen- 
dolen free"  rose  the  impassable  vision  of  "  Gwen- 
dolen rich,  exalted,  courted ;"  and  if  in  the  former 
time,  when  both  their  lives  were  fresh,  she  had 
turned  from  his  love  with  repugnance,  what  ground 
was  there  for  supposing  that  her  heart  would  be 
more  open  to  him  in  the  future  V 

These  thoughts,  which  he  wanted  to  master  and 
suspend,  were  like  a  tumultuary  ringing  of  oppos- 
ing chimes  that  he  could  not  escape  from  by  run- 
ning. During  the  last  year  he  had  brought  him- 
self into  a  state  of  calm  resolve,  and  now  it  seemed 
that  three  words  bad  been  enough  to  undo  all 
that  difficult  work,  and  cast  him  back  into  the 
wretched  fluctuations  of  a  longing  which  he  rec- 
ognized as  simply  perturbing  and  hopeless.  And 
at  this  moment  the  activity  of  such  longing  had  an 
untimcliness  that  made  it  repulsive  to  his  better 
self.  Excuse  poor  Rex :  it  was  not  much  more 
than  eighteen  months  since  he  had  been  laid  low 
by  an  archer  who  sometimes  touches  his  arrow 
with  a  subtle,  lingering  poison.  The  disappoint- 
ment of  a  youthful  passion  has  effects  as  incal- 


culable as  those  of  small-pox,  which  may  make 
one  person  plain  and  a  genius,  another  less  plain 
and  more  foolish,  another  plain  without  detri- 
ment to  his  folly,  and  leave  perhaps  the  majority 
without  obvious  change.  Every  thing  depends, 
not  on  the  mere  fact  of  disappointment,  but  on 
the  nature  affected  and  the  force  that  stirs  it.  In 
Rex's  well-endowed  nature,  brief  as  the  hope  had 
been,  the  passionate  stirring  had  gone  deep,  and 
the  effect  of  disappointment  was  revolutionary, 
though  fraught  with  a  beneficent  new  order  which 
retained  most  of  the  old  virtues :  in  certain  re- 
spects he  believed  that  it  had  finally  determined 
the  bias  and  color  of  his  life.  Now,  however,  it 
seemed  that  his  inward  peace  was  hardly  more 
stable  than  that  of  republican  Florence,  and  his 
heart  no  better  than  the  alarm-bell  that  made 
work  slack  and  tumult  busy. 

Rex's  love  had  been  of  that  sudden,  penetra- 
ting, clinging  sort  which  the  ancients  knew  and 
sung,  and  in  singing  made  a  fashion  of  talk  for 
many  moderns  whose  experience  has  been  by  no 
means  of  a  fiery,  daemonic  character.  To  have 
the  consciousness  suddenly  steeped  with  anoth- 
er's personality,  to  have  the  strongest  inclinations 
possessed  by  an  image  which  retains  its  domi- 
nance in  spite  of  change  and  apart  from  worthi- 
ness— nay,  to  feel  a  passion  which  clings  the  faster 
for  the  tragic  pangs  inflicted  by  a  cruel,  recog- 
nized unworthiness — is  a  phase  of  love  which  in 
the  feeble  and  common-minded  has  a  repulsive 
likeness  to  a  blind  animalism  insensible  to  the 
higher  sway  of  moral  affinity  or  heaven-lit  ad- 
miration. But  when  this  attaching  force  is  pres- 
ent in  a  nature  not  of  brutish  unmodifiableness, 
but  of  a  human  dignity  that  can  risk  itself  safely, 
it  may  even  result  in  a  devotedness  not  unfit  to 
be  called  divine  in  a  higher  sense  than  the  ancient. 
Phlegmatic  rationality  stares  and  shakes  its  head 
at  these  unaccountable  prepossessions,  but  they 
exist  as  undeniably  as  the  winds  and  waves,  de- 
termining here  a  wreck  and  there  a  triumphant 
voyage. 

This  sort  of  passion  had  nested  in  the  sweet- 
natured,  strong  Rex,  and  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  its  companionship,  as  if  it  had  been  an 
object  supremely  dear,  stricken  dumb  and  help- 
less, and  turning  all  the  future  of  tenderness  into 
a  shadow  of  the  past.  But  he  had  also  made  up 
his  mind  that  his  life  was  not  to  be  pauperized 
because  he  had  had  to  renounce  one  sort  of  joy ; 
rather,  he  had  begun  life  again  with  a  new  count- 
ing up  of  the  treasures  that  remained  to  him, 
and  he  had  even  felt  a  release  of  power  such  as 
may  come  from  ceasing  to  be  afraid  of  your  own 
neck. 

And  now,  here  he  was  pacing  the  shrubbery, 
angry  with  himself  that  the  sense  of  irrevoca- 
bleness  in  his  lot,  which  ought  in  reason  to  have 
been  as  strong  as  ever,  had  been  shaken  by  a 
change  of  circumstances  that  could  make  no 
change  in  relation  to  him.  He  told  himself  the 
truth  quite  roughly : 

"She  would  never  love  me;  and  that  is  not 
the  question — I  could  never  approach  her  as  a 
lover  in  her  present  position.  I  am  exactly  of 
no  consequence  at  all,  and  am  not  likely  to  be  of 
much  consequence  till  my  head  is  turning  gray. 
But  what  has  that  to  do  with  it  ?  She  would  not 
have  me  on  any  terms,  and  I  would  not  ask  her. 
It  is  a  meanness  to  be  thinking  about  it  now— 
no  better  than  lurking  about  the  battle-field  to 


BOOK  YIIL— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


241 


strip  the  dead ;  but  there  never  was  more  gra- 
tuitous sinning.  I  have  nothing  to  gain  there — 
absolutely  nothing.  Then  why  can't  I  face  the 
facts,  and  behave  as  they  demand,  instead  of 
leaving  my  father  to  suppose  that  there  are  mat- 
ters he  can't  speak  to  me  about,  though  I  might 
be  useful  in  them  ?" 

That  last  thought  made  one  wave  with  the  im- 
pulse that  sent  Rex  walking  firmly  into  the  house 
and  through  the  open  door  of  the  study,  where 
he  saw  his  father  packing  a  traveling-desk. 

"  Can  I  be  of  any  use,  Sir  ?"  said  Rex,  with 
rallied  courage,  as  his  father  looked  up  at  him. 

"Yes,  my  boy:  when  I  am  gone,  just  see  to 
my  letters,  and  answer  where  necessary,  and  send 
me  word  of  every  thing.  Dymock  will  manage 
the  parish  very  well,  and  you  will  stay  with  your 
mother,  or,  at  least,  go  up  and  down  again,  till  I 
come  back,  whenever  that  may  be." 

"  You  will  hardly  be  very  long,  Sir,  I  suppose," 
said  Rex,  beginning  to  strap  a  railway  rug. 
"  You  will  perhaps  bring  my  cousin  back  to  En- 
gland ?"  He  forced  himself  to  speak  of  Gwen- 
dolen for  the  first  time,  and  the  Rector  noticed 
the  epoch  with  satisfaction. 

"  That  depends,"  he  answered,  taking  the  sub- 
ject as  a  matter  of  course  between  them.  "  Per- 
haps her  mother  may  stay  there  with  her,  and  I 
may  come  back  very  soon.  This  telegram  leaves 
us  in  an  ignorance  which  is  rather  anxious.  But 
no  doubt  the  arrangements  of  the  will  lately 
made  are  satisfactory,  and  there  may  possibly  be 
an  heir  yet  to  be  born.  In  any  case,  I  feel  con- 
fident that  Gwendolen  will  be  liberally— I  should 
expect,  splendidly — provided  for." 

"It  must  have  been  a  great  shock  for  her," 
said  Rex,  getting  more  resolute  after  the  first 
twinge  had  been  borne.  "  I  suppose  he  was  a 
devoted  husband." 

"  No  doubt  of  it,"  said  the  Rector,  in  his  most 
decided  manner.  "  Few  men  of  his  position 
would  have  come  forward  as  he  did  under  the 
circumstances." 

Rex  had  never  seen  Grandcourt,  had  never  heard 
any  thing  about  him  from  any  one  of  the  family, 
and  knew  nothing  of  Gwendolen's  flight  from  her 
suitor  to  Leubronn.  He  only  knew  that  Grand- 
court,  being  very  much  in  love  with  her,  had  made 
her  an  offer  in  the  first  weeks  of  her  sudden  pov- 
erty, and  had  behaved  very  handsomely  in  pro- 
viding for  her  mother  and  sisters.  That  was  all 
very  natural,  and  what  Rex  himself  would  have 
liked  to  do.  Grandcourt  had  been  a  lucky  fel- 
low, and  had  had  some  happiness  before  he  got 
drowned.  Yet  Rex  wondered  much  whether 
Gwendolen  had  been  in  love  with  the  successful 
suitor,  or  had  only  forborne  to  tell  him  that  she 
hated  being  made  love  to. 


CHAPTER  LIX. 

"  I  count  myself  In  nothing  else  so  happy 
As  in  a  soul  remembering  my  good  friends." 

— SHAKSPKARB. 

SIR  HUGO  MALLINGEB  was  not  so  prompt  in 
starting  for  Genoa  as  Mr.  Gascoigne  had  been, 
and  Deronda  on  all  accounts  would  not  take  his 
departure  till  he  had  seen  the  Baronet.  There 
was  not  only  Grandcourt's  death,  but  also  the 
late  crisis  in  his  own  life,  to  make  reasons  why 
his  oldest  friend  would  desire  to  have  the  uure- 

Q 


strained  communication  of  speech  with  him,  for 
in  writing  he  had  not  felt  able  to  give  any  details 
concerning  the  mother  who  had  come  and  gone 
like  an  apparition.  It  was  not  till  the  fifth  even- 
ing that  Deronda,  according  to  telegram,  waited 
for  Sir  Hugo  at  the  station,  where  he  was  to  arrive 
between  eight  and  nine ;  and  while  he  was  look- 
ing forward  to  the  sight  of  the  kind,  familiar  face, 
which  was  part  of  his  earliest  memories,  something 
like  a  smile,  in  spite  of  his  late  tragic  experience, 
might  have  been  detected  in  his  eyes  and  the 
curve  of  his  lips  at  the  idea  of  Sir  Hugo's  pleasure 
in  being  now  master  of  his  estates,  able  to  leave 
them  to  his  daughters,  or  at  least — according  to  a 
view  of  inheritance  which  had  just  been  strongly 
impressed  on  Deronda's  imagination^-to  take 
make-shift  feminine  offspring  as  intermediate  to 
a  satisfactory  heir  in  a  grandson.  We  should  be 
churlish  creatures  if  we  could  have  no  joy  in  our 
fellow-mortals'  joy  unless  it  were  in  agreement 
with  our  theory  of  righteous  distribution  and  our 
highest  ideal  of  human  good  :  what  sour  corners 
our  mouths  would  get — our  eyes,  what  frozen 
glances !  and  all  the  while  our  own  possessions 
and  desires  would  not  exactly  adjust  themselves 
to  our  ideal.  We  must  have  some  comradeship 
with  imperfection ;  and  it  is,  happily,  possible  to 
feel  gratitude  even  where  we  discern  a  mistake 
that  may  have  been  injurious,  the  vehicle  of  the 
mistake  being  an  affectionate  intention  prosecuted 
through  a  lifetime  of  kindly  offices.  Deronda's 
feeling  and  judgment  were  strongly  against  the 
action  of  Sir  Hugo  in  making  himself  the  agent 
of  a  falsity — yes,  a  falsity :  he  could  give  no 
milder  name  to  the  concealment  under  which  he 
had  been  reared.  But  the  Baronet  had  probably 
had  no  .clear  knowledge  concerning  the  mother's 
breach  of  trust,  and  with  his  light,  easy  way  of 
taking  life,  had  held  it  a  reasonable  preference 
in  her  that  her  son  should  be  made  an  English 
gentleman,  seeing  that  she  had  the  eccentricity  of 
not  caring  to  part  from  her  child,  and  be  to  him 
as  if  she  were  not.  Daniel's  affectionate  grati- 
tude toward  Sir  Hugo  made  him  wish  to  find 
grounds  of  excuse  rather  than  blame ;  for  it  is 
as  possible  to  be  rigid  in  principle  and  tender 
in  blame  as  it  is  to  suffer  from  the  sight  of  things 
hung  awry,  and  yet  to  be  patient  with  the  hanger 
who  sees  amiss.  If  Sir  Hugo  in  his  bachelorhood 
had  been  beguiled  into  regarding  children  chiefly 
as  a  product  intended  to  make  lif e  more  agreeable 
to  the  full-grown,  whose  convenience  alone  was  to 
be  consulted  in  the  disposal  of  them — why,  he 
had  shared  an  assumption  which,  if  not  formally 
avowed,  was  massively  acted  on  at  that  date  of 
the  world's  history ;  and  Deronda,  with  all  his 
keen  memory  of  the  painful  inward  struggle  he 
had  gone  through  in  his  boyhood,  was  able  also  to 
remember  the  many  signs  that  his  experience  had 
been  entirely  shut  out  from  Sir  Hugo's  conception. 
Ignorant  kindness  may  have  the  effect  of  cruelty ; 
but  to  be  angry  with  it  as  if  it  were  direct  cruelty 
would  be  an  ignorant  unkindness,  the  most  re- 
mote from  Deronda's  large  imaginative  lenience 
toward  others.  And  perhaps  now,  after  the 
searching  scenes  of  the  last  ten  days,  in  which 
the  curtain  had  been  lifted  for  him  from  the  se- 
crets of  lives  unlike  his  own,  he  was  more  than 
ver  disposed  to  check  that  rashness  of  indigna- 
tion or  resentment  which  has  an  unpleasant  like- 
ness to  the  love  of  punishing.  When  he  saw 
Sir  Hugo's  familiar  figure  descending  from  the 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


railway  carriage,  the  life -long  affection,  which 
had  been  well  accustomed  to  make  excuses,  flow- 
ed in  and  submerged  all  newer  knowledge  that 
might  have  seemed  fresh  ground  for  blame. 

"Well,  Dan,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  with  a  serious 
fervor,  grasping  Deronda's  hand.  He  uttered  no 
other  words  of  greeting ;  there  was  too  strong  a 
rush  of  mutual  consciousness.  The  next  thing 
was  to  give  orders  to  the  courier,  and  then  to 
propose  walking  slowly  in  the  mild  evening,  there 
being  no  hurry  to  get  to  the  hotel. 

"  I  have  taken  my  journey  easily,  and  am  in 
excellent  condition,"  he  said,  as  he  and  Deronda 
came  out  under  the  starlight,  which  was  still 
J&iint  with  the  lingering  sheen  of  day.  "  I  didn't 
hurry  in  setting  off,  because  I  wanted  to  inquire 
into  things  a  little,  and  so  I  got  sight  of  your 
letter  to  Lady  Mallinger  before  I  started.  But 
now,  how  is  the  widow  ?" 

"•Getting  calmer,"  said  Deronda.  "She  seems 
to  be  escaping  the  bodily  illness  that  one  might 
have  feared  for  her  after  her  plunge  and  terri- 
ble excitement.  Her  uncle  and  mother  came  two 
days  ago,  and  she  is  being  well  taken  care  of." 

"  Any  prospect  of  an  heir  being  born  ?" 

"  From  what  Mr.  Gascoigne  said  to  me,  I  con- 
clude not.  He  spoke  as  if  it  were  a  question 
whether  the  widow  would  have  the  estates  for 
her  life." 

"  It  will  not  be  much  of  a  wrench  to  her  affec- 
tions, I  fancy,  this  loss  of  the  husband  ?"  said 
Sdr  Hugo,  looking  round  at  Deronda. 

"  The  suddenness  of  the  death  has  been  a  great 
blow  to  her,"  said  Deronda,  quietly  evading  the 
question. 

"  I  wonder  whether  Grandcourt  gave  her  any 
Jotion  what  were  the  provisions  of  his  will?" 
said  Sir  Hugo. 

"Do  you  know  what  they  are,  Sir?"  parried 
Deronda. 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  said  the  Baronet,  quickly.  "  Gad ! 
if  there  is  no  prospect  of  a  legitimate  heir,  he  has 
left  every  thing  to  a  boy  he  had  by  a  Mrs.  Glasher ; 
you  know  nothing  about  the  affair,  I  suppose, 
but  she  was  a  sort  of  wife  to  him  for  a  good 
many  years,  and  there  are  three  older  children — 
girls.  The  boy  is  to  take  his  father's  name ;  he 
is  Henleigh  already,  and  he  is  to  be  Henleigh 
Mallinger  Grandcourt.  The  Mallinger  will  b.e  of 
no  use  to  him,  I  am  happy  to  say ;  but  the  young 
dog  will  have  more  than  enough,  with  his  four- 
teen years'  minority — no  need  to  have  had  holes 
filled  up  with  my  fifty  thousand  for  Diplow 
that  he  had  no  right  to ;  and  meanwhile  my 
beauty,  the  young  widow,  is  to  put  up  with  a  poor 
two  thousand  a  year  and  the  house  at  Gadsmere 
— e  nice  kind  of  banishment  for  her  if  she  chose 
to  shut  herself  up  there,  which  I  don't  think  she 
will.  The  boy's  mother  has  been  living  there  of 
late  years.  I'm  perfectly  disgusted  with  Grand- 
court.  I  don't  know  that  I'm  obliged  to  think 
the  better  of  him  because  he's  drowned,  though, 
so  far  as  my  affairs  are  concerned,  nothing  in 
this  life  became  him  like  the  leaving  it." 

"  In  my  opinion  he  did  wrong  when  he  married 
this  wife — not  in  leaving  his  estates  to  the  son," 
•aid  Deronda,  rather  dryly. 

"  I  say  nothing  against  his  leaving  the  land  to 
the  lad,"  said  Sir  Hugo;  " but  since  he  had  mar- 
ried this  girl,  he  ought  to  have  given  her  a  hand- 
some provision,  such  as  she  could  live  on  in  a 
style  fitted  to  the  rank  he  had  raised  her  to.  She 


ought  to  have  had  four  or  five  thousand  a  year 
and  the  London  house  for  her  life ;  that's  what  I 
should  have  done  for  her.  I  suppose,  as  she  was 
penniless,  her  friends  couldn't  stand  out  for  a 
settlement,  else  it's  ill  trusting  to  the  will  a  man 
may  make  after  he's  married.  Even  a  wise  man 
generally  lets  some  folly  ooze  out  of  him  in  his 
will — my  father  did,  I  know ;  and  if  a  fellow  has 
any  spite  or  tyranny  in  him,  he's  likely  to  bottle 
off  a  good  deal  for  keeping  in  that  sort  of  docu- 
ment. It's  quite  clear  Grandcourt  meant  that 
his  death  should  put  an  extinguisher  on  his  wife, 
if  she  bore  him  no  heir." 

"And,  in  the  other  case,  I  suppose  every  thing 
would  have  been  reversed — illegitimacy  would 
have  had  the  extinguisher  ?"  said  Deronda,  with 
some  scorn. 

"Precisely — Gadsmere  and  the  two  thousand. 
It's  queer.  One  nuisance  is  that  Grandcourt  has 
made  me  an  executor ;  but  seeing  he  was  the  son 
of  my  only  brother,  I  can't  refuse  to  act.  And  I 
shall  mind  it  less  if  I  can  be  of  any  use  to  the 
widow.  Lush  thinks  she  was  not  in  ignorance 
about  the  family  under  the  rose,  and  the  purport 
of  the  will.  He  hints  that  there  was  no  very 
good  understanding  between  the  couple.  But  I 
fancy  you  are  the  man  who  knew  most  about 
what  Mrs.  Grandcourt  felt  or  did  not  feel — eh, 
Dan  ?"  Sir  Hugo  did  not  put  this  question  with 
his  usual  jocoseness,  but  rather  with  a  lowered 
tone  of  interested  inquiry;  and  Deronda  felt  that 
any  evasion  would  be  misinterpreted.  He  an- 
swered gravely : 

"  She  was  certainly  not  happy.  They  were  un- 
suited  to  each  other.  But  as  to  the  disposal  of 
the  property — from  all  I  have  seen  of  her,  I  should 
predict  that  she  will  be  quite  contented  with  it." 

"  Then  she  is  not  much  like  the  rest  of  her  sex ; 
that's  all  I  can  say,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  with  a  slight 
shrug.  "  However,  she  ought  to  be  something  ex- 
traordinary, for  there  must  be  an  entanglement 
between  your  horoscope  and  hers — eh  ?  When 
that  tremendous  telegram  came,  the  first  thing 
Lady  Mallinger  said  was, '  How  very  strange  that 
it  should  be  Daniel  who  sends  it !'  But  I  have 
had  something  of  the  same  sort  in  my  own  life. 
I  was  once  at  a  foreign  hotel  where  a  lady  had 
been  left  by  her  husband  without  money.  When 
I  heard  of  it,  and  came  forward  to  help  her,  who 
should  she  be  but  an  early  flame  of  mine,  who 
had  been  fool  enough  to  marry  an  Austrian  bar- 
on with  a  long  mustache  and  short  affection  ? 
But  it  was  an  affair  of  my  own  that  called  m« 
there — nothing  to  do  with  knight-errantry,  any 
more  than  your  coming  to  Genoa  had  to  do  with 
the  Grandcourts." 

There  was  silence  for  a  little  while.  Sir  Hugo 
had  begun  to  talk  of  the  Grandcourts  as  the  less 
difficult  subject  between  himself  and  Deronda; 
but  they  were  both  wishing  to  overcome  a  reluc- 
tance to  perfect  frankness  on  the  events  which 
touched  their  relation  to  each  other.  Deronda 
felt  that  his  letter,  after  the  first  interview  with 
his  mother,  had  been  rather  a  thickening  than  a 
breaking  of  the  ice,  and  that  he  ought  to  wait  for 
the  first  opening  to  come  from  Sir  Hugo.  Just 
when  they  were  about  to  lose  sight  of  the  port, 
the  Baronet  turned,  and  pausing  as  if  to  get  a  last 
view,  said,  in  a  tone  of  more  serious  feeling, 

"  And  about  the  main  business  of  your  coming 
to  Genoa,  Dan  ?  You  have  not  been  deeply  pain- 
ed by  any  thing  you  have  learned,  I  hope  ?  There 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND   SEED. 


243 


is  nothing  that  you  feel  need  change  your  posi- 
tion in  any  way  ?  You  know,  whatever  happens 
to  you  must  always  be  of  importance  to  me." 

"  I  desire  to  meet  your  goodness  by  perfect  con- 
fidence, Sir,"  said  Deronda.  "  But  I  can't  answer 
those  questions  truly  by  a  simple  yes  or  no. 
Much  that  I  have  heard  about  the  past  has  pain- 
ed me.  And  it  has  been  a  pain  to  meet  and  part 
with  my  mother,  in  her  suffering  state,  as  I  have 
been  compelled  to  do.  But  it  is  no  pain — it  is 
rather  a  clearing  up  of  doubts  for  which  I  am 
thankful — to  know  my  parentage.  As  to  the  ef- 
fect on  my  position,  there  will  be  no  change  in 
my  gratitude  to  you,  Sir,  for  the  fatherly  care 
and  affection  you  have  always  shown  me.  But 
to  know  that  I  was  born  a  Jew  may  have  a  mo- 
mentous influence  on  my  life,  which  I  am  hardly 
able  to  tell  you  of  at  present." 

Deronda  spoke  the  last  sentence  with  a  resolve 
that  overcame  some  diffidence.  He  felt  that  the 
difference  between  Sir  Hugo's  nature  and  his  own 
would  have,  by-and-by,  to  disclose  itself  more 
markedly  than  had  ever  yet  been  needful.  The 
Baronet  gave  him  a  quick  glance,  and  turned  to 
walk  on.  After  a  few  moments'  silence,  in  which 
he  had  reviewed  all  the  material  in  his  memory 
which  would  enable  him  to  interpret  Deronda's 
words,  he  said, 

"  I  have  long  expected  something  remarkable 
from  you,  Dan ;  but,  for  God's  sake,  don't  go  into 
any  eccentricities !  I  can  tolerate  any  man's  dif- 
ference of  opinion,  but  let  him  tell  it  me  without 
getting  himself  up  as  a  lunatic.  At  this  stage  of 
the  world,  if  a  man  wants  to  be  taken  seriously, 
he  must  keep  clear  of  melodrama.  Don't  misun- 
derstand me.  I  am  not  suspecting  you  of  setting 
up  any  lunacy  on  your  own  account.  I  only  think 
you  might  easily  be  led  arm  in  arm  with  a  lunatic, 
especially  if  he  wanted  defending.  You  have  a 
passion  for  people  who  are  pelted,  Dan.  I'm  sorry 
for  them  too ;  but  so  far  as  company  goes,  it's  a 
bad  ground  of  selection.  However,  I  don't  ask 
you  to  anticipate  your  inclination  in  any  thing  you 
have  to  tell  me.  When  you  make  up  your  mind 
to  a  course  that  requires  money,  I  have  some  six- 
teen thousand  pounds  that  have  been  accumula- 
ting for  you  over  and  above  what  you  have  been 
having  the  interest  of  as  income.  And  now  I  am 
come,  I  suppose  you  want  to  get  back  to  England 
as  soon  as  you  can  ?" 

"  I  must  go  first  to  Mainz  to  get  away  a  chest 
of  my  grandfather's,  and  perhaps  to  see  a  friend 
of  his,"  said  Deronda.  "Although  the  chest  has 
been  lying  there  these  twenty  years,  I  have  an 
unreasonable  sort  of  nervous  eagerness  to  get  it 
away  under  my  care,  as  if  it  were  more  likely  now 
than  before  that  something  might  happen  to  it. 
And  perhaps  I  am  the  more  uneasy  because  I  lin- 
gered after  my  mother  left,  instead  of  setting  out 
immediately.  Yet  I  can't  regret  that  I  was  here 
— else  Mrs.  Grandcourt  would  have  had  none  but 
servants  to  act  for  her." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  with  a  flippancy 
which  was  an  escape  of  some  vexation  hidden 
under  his  more  serious  gpeech ;  "  I  hope  you  are 
not  going  to  set  a  dead  Jew  above  a  living  Chris- 
tian." 

Deronda  colored,  and  repressed  a  retort  They 
were  just  turning  into  the  Italia. 


CHAPTER  LX. 


"  But  I  shall  say  no  more  of  this  at  this  time  ;  for  this 
la  to  be  felt  and  not  to  be  talked  of  ;  and  they  who 
never  touched  it  with  their  fingers  may  secretly  per- 
haps laugh  at  it  in  their  hearts  and  be  never  the  wiser." 
—  JEREMY  TAYLOB. 

The  Roman  Emperor  in  the  legend  put  to  death  ten 
learned  Israelites  to  avenge  the  sale  of  Joseph  by  his 
brethren.  And  there  have  always  been  enough  of  his 
kidney,  whose  piety  lies  in  punishing,  who  can  see  the 
justice  of  grudges,  but  not  of  gratitude.  For  you  shall 
never  convince  the  stronger  feeling  that  it  hath  not  the 
stronger  reason,  or  incline  him  who  hath  no  love  to  be- 
lieve that  there  is  good  ground  for  loving  :  as  we  may 
learn  from  the  order  of  word-making,  wherein  love  pre- 
cedeth  lovable. 

WHEN  Deronda  presented  his  letter  at  the  bank- 
ing house  in  the  Schitster  Strasse  at  Mainz,  and 
asked  for  Joseph  Kalonymos,  he  was  presently 
shown  into  an  inner  room  where,  seated  at  a 
table  arranging  open  letters,  was  the  white-beard- 
ed man  whom  he  had  seen  the  year  before  hi  the 
synagogue  at  Frankfort.  He  wore  his  hat  —  it 
seemed  to  be  the  same  old  felt  hat  as  before  — 
and  near  him  was  a  packed  portmanteau  with  a 
wrap  and  overcoat  upon  it.  On  seeing  Deronda 
enter  he  rose,  but  did  not  advance  or  put  out 
his  hand.  Looking  at  him  with  small  penetrating 
eyes  which  glittered  like  black  gems  in  the  midst 
of  his  yellowish  face  and  white  hair,  he  said,  in 
German, 

"  Good  !  It  is  now  you  who  seek  me,  young 
man." 

"  Yes  ;  I  seek  you  with  gratitude,  as  a  friend 
of  my  grandfather's,"  said  Deronda  ;  "  and  I  am 
under  an  obligation  to  you  for  giving  yourself 
much  trouble  on  my  account."  He  spoke  with- 
out difficulty  in  that  liberal  language  which  takes 
many  strange  accents  to  its  maternal  bosom. 

Kalonymos  now  put  out  his  hand  and  said,  cor- 
dially, "So  —  you  are  no  longer  angry  at  being 
something  more  than  an  Englishman  ?" 

"On  the  contrary.  I  thank  you  heartily  for 
helping  to  save  me  from  remaining  in  ignorance 
of  my  parentage,  and  for  taking  care  of  the  chest 
that  my  grandfather  left  in  trust  for  me." 

"Sit  down,  sit  down,"  said  Kalonymos,  in  a 
quick  under-tone,  seating  himself  again,  and  point- 
ing to  a  chair  near  him.  Then  deliberately  lay- 
ing aside  his  hat  and  showing  a  head  thickly 
covered  with  white  hair,  he  stroked  and  clutched 
his  beard  while  he  looked  examiningly  at  the 
young  face  before  him.  The  moment  wrought 
strongly  on  Deronda's  imaginative  susceptibility  : 
hi  the  presence  of  one  linked  still  hi  zealous  friend- 
ship with  the  grandfather  whose  hope  had  yearn- 
ed toward  him  when  he  was  unborn,  and  who 
though  dead  was  yet  to  gpeak  with  him  in  those 
written  memorials  which,  says  Milton,  "  contain 
a  potency  of  life  in  them  to  be  as  active  as  that 
soul  whose  progeny  they  are,"  he  seemed  to  him- 
self to  be  touching  the  electric  chain  of  his  own 
ancestry;  and  he  bore  the  scrutinizing  look  of 
Kalonymos  with  a  delighted  awe,  something  like 
what  one  feels  in  the  solemn  commemoration  of 
acts  done  long  ago  but  still  telling  markedly  on 
the  life  of  to-day.  Impossible  for  men  of  duller 
fibre  —  men  whose  affection  is  not  ready  to  diffuse 
itself  through  the  wide  travel  of  imagination,  to 
comprehend,  perhaps  even  to  credit,  this  sensibil- 
ity of  Deronda's  ;  but  it  subsisted,  like  their  own 
dullness,  notwithstanding  their  lack  of  belief  in 
it,  and  it  gave  his  face  an  expression  which  seem- 
ed very  satisfactory  to  the  observer. 


244 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


He  said  in  Hebrew,  quoting  from  one  of  the 
fine  hymns  in  the  Hebrew  liturgy,  "  As  Thy  good- 
ness has  been  great  to  the  former  generations, 
even  so  may  it  be  to  the  latter."  Then  after 
pausing  a  little  he  began,  "  Young  man,  I  rejoice 
that  I  was  not  yet  set  off  again  on  my  travels, 
and  that  you  are  come  in  time  for  me  to  see  the 
image  of  my  friend  as  he  was  in  his  youth — no 
longer  perverted  from  the  fellowship  of  your  peo- 
ple— no  longer  shrinking  in  proud  wrath  from 
the  touch  of  him  who  seemed  to  be  claiming  you 
as  a  Jew.  You  come  with  thankfulness  yourself 
to  claim  the  kindred  and  heritage  that  wicked 
contrivance  would  have  robbed  you  of.  You 
come  with  a  willing  soul  to  declare,  '  I  am  the 
grandson  of  Daniel  Charisi.'  Is  it  not  so  ?" 

"  Assuredly  it  is,"  said  Deronda.  "  But  let  me 
say  that  I  should  at  no  time  have  been  inclined 
to  treat  a  Jew  with  incivility  simply  because  he 
was  a  Jew.  You  can  understand  that  I  shrank 
from  saying  to  a  stranger, '  I  know  nothing  of  my 
mother.' " 

"A  sin !  a  sin !"  said  Kalonymos,  putting  up  his 
hand  and  closing  his  eyes  in  disgust.  "A  rob- 
bery of  our  people — as  when  our  youths  and 
maidens  were  reared  for  the  Roman  Edom.  But 
it  is  frustrated.  I  have  frustrated  it.  When 
Daniel  Charisi — may  his  Rock  and  his  Redeemer 
guard  him ! — when  Daniel  Charisi  was  a  stripling 
and  I  was  a  lad  little  above  his  shoulder,  we  made 
a  solemn  vow  always  to  be  friends.  He  said,  'Let 
us  bind  ourselves  with  duty,  as  if  we  were  sons 
of  the  same  mother.'  That  was  his  bent  from 
first  to  last — as  he  said,  to  fortify  his  soul  with 
bonds.  It  was  a  saying  of  his, '  Let  us  bind  love 
with' duty;  for  duty  is  the  love  of  law;  and  law 
is  the  nature  of  the  Eternal.'  So  we  bound  our- 
selves. And  though  we  were  much  apart  in  our 
later  life,  the  bond  has  never  been  broken.  When 
he  was  dead,  they  sought  to  rob  him ;  but  they 
could  not  rob  him  of  me.  I  rescued  that  remain- 
der of  him  which  he  had  prized  and  preserved 
for  his  offspring.  And  I  have  restored  to  him 
the  offspring  they  had  robbed  him  of.  I  will 
bring  you  the  chest  forthwith." 

Kalonymos  left  the  room  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  returned  with  a  clerk  who  carried  the  chest, 
set  it  down  on  the  floor,  drew  off  a  leather  cover, 
and  went  out  again.  It  was  not  very  large,  but 
was  made  heavy  by  ornamental  bracers  and  han- 
dles of  gilt  iron.  The  wood  was  beautifully  in- 
cised with  Arabic  lettering. 

"  So !"  said  Kalonymos,  returning  to  his  seat. 
"  And  here  is  the  curious  key,"  he  added,  taking 
it  from  a  small  leathern  bag.  "  Bestow  it  care- 
fully. I  trust  you  are  methodic  and  wary."  He 
gave  Deronda  the  monitory  and  slightly  suspi- 
cious look  with  which  age  is  apt  to  commit  any 
object  to  the  keeping  of  youth. 

"  I  shall  be  more  careful  of  this  than  of  any 
other  property,"  said  Deronda,  smiling,  and  put- 
ting the  key  in  his  breast  pocket.  "  I  never  be- 
fore possessed  any  thing  that  was  a  sign  to  me  of 
so  much  cherished  hope  and  effort.  And  I  shall 
never  forget  that  the  effort  was  partly  yours. 
Have  you  time  to  tell  me  more  of  my  grandfather  ? 
Or  shall  I  be  trespassing  in  staying  longer  ?" 

"  Stay  yet  a  while.  In  an  hour  and  eighteen 
minutes  I  start  for  Trieste,"  said  Kalonymos, 
looking  at  his  watch,  "and  presently  my  sons 
will  expect  my  attention.  Will  you  let  me  make 
you  known  to  them,  so  that  they  may  have  the 


pleasure  of  showing  hospitality  to  my  friend's 
grandson  ?  They  dwell  here  in  ease  and  luxury 
though  I  choose  to  be  a  wanderer." 

"I  shall  be  glad  if  you  will  commend  me  to 
their  acquaintance  for  some  future  opportunity," 
said  Deronda.  "  There  are  pressing  claims  call- 
ing me  to  England — friends  who  may  be  much 
in  need  of  my  presence.  I  have  been'kept  away 
from  them  too  long  by  unexpected  circumstances. 
But  to  know  more  of  you  and  your  family  would 
be  motive  enough  to  bring  me  again  to  Mainz." 

"  Good !  Me  you  will  hardly  find,  for  I  am 
beyond  my  threescore  years  and  ten,  and  I  am 
a  wanderer,  carrying  my  shroud  with  me.  But 
my  sons  and  their  children  dwell  here  in  wealth 
and  unity.  The  days  are  changed  for  us  in  Mainz 
since  our  people  were  slaughtered  wholesale  if 
they  wouldn't  be  baptized  wholesale:  they  are 
changed  for  us  since  Karl  the  Great  fetched  my 
ancestors  from  Italy  to  bring  some  tincture  of 
knowledge  to  our  rough  German  brethren.  I  and 
my  contemporaries  have  had  to  fight  for  it,  too. 
Our  youth  fell  on  evil  days ;  but  this  we  have 
won :  we  increase  our  wealth  in  safety,  and  the 
learning  of  all  Germany  is  fed  and  fattened  by 
Jewish  brains — though  they  keep  not  always  their 
Jewish  hearts.  Have  you  been  left  altogether 
ignorant  of  your  people's  life,  young  man  ?" 

"  No,"  said  Deronda ;  "  I  have  lately,  before  I 
had  any  true  suspicion  of  my  parentage,  been  led 
to  study  every  thing  belonging  to  their  history 
with  more  interest  than  any  other  subject.  It 
turns  out  that  I  have  been  making  myself  ready 
to  understand  my  grandfather  a  little."  He  was 
anxious  lest  the  time  should  be  consumed  before 
this  circuitous  course  of  talk  could  lead  them 
back  to  the  topic  he  most  cared  about.  Age  does 
not  easily  distinguish  between  what  it  needs  to 
express  and  what  youth  needs  to  know — distance 
seeming  to  level  the  objects  of  memory ;  and 
keenly  active  as  Joseph  Kalonymos  showed  him- 
self, an  inkstand  in  the  wrong  place  would  have 
hindered  his  imagination  from  getting  to  Beyrout : 
he  had  been'  used  to  unite  restless  travel  with 
punctilious  observation.  But  Deronda's  last  sen- 
tence answered  its  purpose. 

"  So— you  would  perhaps  have  been  such  a  man 
as  he  if  your  education  had  not  hindered ;  for  you 
are  like  him  in  features — yet  not  altogether,  young 
man.  He  had  an  iron  will  in  his  face :  it  braced 
up  every  body  about  him.  When  he  was  quite 
young  he  had  already  got  one  deep  upright  line 
in  his  brow.  I  see  none  of  that  in  you.  Daniel 
Charisi  used  to  say,  'Better  a  wrong  will  than 
a  wavering ;  better  a  steadfast  enemy  than  an 
uncertain  friend;  better  a  false  belief  than  no 
belief  at  all.'  What  he  despised  most  was  indif- 
ference. He  had  longer  reasons  than  I  can  give 
you." 

"  Yet  his  knowledge  was  not  narrow  ?"  said  De- 
ronda, with  a  tacit  reference  to  the  usual  excuse 
for  indecision — that  it  comes  from  knowing  too 
much. 

"  Narrow  ?  no,"  said  Kalonymos,  shaking  his 
head,  with  a  compassionate  smile.  "  From  his 
childhood  upward  he  drank  in  learning  as  easily 
as  the  plant  suoks  up  water.  But  ho  early  took 
to  medicine  and  theories  about  life  and  health. 
He  traveled  to  many  countries,  and  spent  much 
of  his  substance  in  seeing  and  knowing.  What 
he  used  to  insist  on  was  that  the  strength  and 
wealth  of  mankind  depended  on  the  balance  of 


BOOK  VIIL— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


246 


separateness  and  communication,  and  he  was  bit- 
terly against  our  people  losing  themselves  among 
the  Gentiles ;  '  It's  no  better,'  said  he, '  than  the 
many  sorts  of  grain  going  back  from  their  vari- 
ety into  sameness.'  He  mingled  all  sorts  of  learn- 
ing; and  in  that  he  was  like  our  Arabic  writers 
in  the  golden  time.  We  studied  together,  but  he 
went  beyond  me.  Though  we  were  bosom-friends, 
and  he  poured  himself  out  to  me,  we  were  as  dif- 
ferent as  the  inside  and  the  outside  of  the  bowl. 
I  stood  up  for  no  notions  of  my  own :  I  took 
Charisi's  sayings  as  I  took  the  shape  of  the  trees : 
they  were  there,  not  to  be  disputed  about.  It 
came  to  the  same  thing  in  both  of  us :  we  were 
both  faithful  Jews,  thankful  not  to  be  Gentiles. 
And  since  I  was  a  ripe  man  I  have  been  what  I 
am  now,  for  all  but  age — loving  to  wander,  loving 
transactions,  loving  to  behold  all  things,  and  car- 
ing nothing  about  hardship.  Charisi  thought  con- 
tinually of  our  people's  future  :  he  went  with  all 
his  soul  into  that  part  of  our  religion :  I,  not.  So 
we  have  freedom,  I  am  content.  Our  people  wan- 
dered before  they  were  driven.  Young  man,  when 
I  am  in  the  East,  I  lie  much  on  deck  and  watch 
the  greater  stars.  The  sight  of  them  satisfies  me. 
I  know  them  as  they  rise,  and  hunger  not  to  know 
more.  Charisi  was  satisfied  with  no  sight,  but 
pieced  it  out  with  what  had  been  before  and  what 
would  come  after.  Yet  we  loved  each  other,  and, 
as  he  said,  we  bound  our  love  with  duty ;  we  sol- 
emnly pledged  ourselves  to  help  and  defend  each 
other  to  the  last.  I  have  fulfilled  my  pledge." 
Here  Kalonymos  rose,  and  Deronda,  rising  also, 
said, 

*'  And  in  being  faithful  to  him  you  have  caused 
justice  to  be  done  to  me.  It  would  have  been  a 
robbery  of  me  too  that  I  should  never  have  known 
of  the  inheritance  he  had  prepared  for  me.  I 
thank  you  with  my  whole  soul" 

"Be  worthy  of  him,  young  man.  What  is 
your  vocation  ?"  This  question  was  put  with  a 
quick  abruptness  which  embarrassed  Deronda, 
who  did  not  feel  it  quite  honest  to  allege  his  law- 
reading  as  a  vocation.  He  answered, 

"  I  can  not  say  that  I  have  any." 

"  Get  one,  get  one.  The  Jew  must  be  diligent. 
You  will  call  yourself  a  Jew  and  profess  the  faith 
of  your  fathers?"  said  Kalonymos,  putting  his 
hand  on  Deronda's  shoulder  and  looking  sharply 
in  his  face. 

"  I  shall  call  myself  a  Jew,"  said  Deronda,  de- 
liberately, becoming  slightly  paler  under  the 
piercing  eyes  of  his  questioner.  "  But  I  will  not 
say  that  I  shall  profess  to  believe  exactly  as  my 
fathers  have  believed.  Our  fathers  themselves 
changed  the  horizon  of  their  belief  and  learned 
of  other  races.  But  I  think  I  can  maintain  my 
grandfather's  notion  of  separateness  with  com- 
munication. I  hold  that  my  first  duty  is  to  my 
own  people,  and  if  there  is  any  thing  to  be  done 
toward  restoring  or  perfecting  their  common  life, 
I  shall  make  that  my  vocation." 

It  happened  to  Deronda  at  that  moment,  as  it 
has  often  happened  to  others,  that  the  need  for 
speech  made  an  epoch  in  resolve.  His  respect 
for  the  questioner  would  not  let  him  decline  to 
answer,  and  by  the  necessity  to  answer  he  found 
out  the  truth  for  himself. 

"Ah,  you  argue  and  you  look  forward — you 
are  Daniel  Charisi's  grandson,"  said  Kalonymos, 
adding  a  benediction  in  Hebrew. 

With  that  they  parted ;  and  almost  as  soon  as 


Deronda  was  in  London,  the  aged  man  was  again 
on  shipboard,  greeting  the  friendly  stars  without 
any  eager  curiosity. 


CHAPTER  LXL 

"Within  the  gentle  heart  Love  shelters  him, 

As  birds  within  the  green  shade  of  the  grove. 
Before  the  gentle  heart,  in  Nature's  scheme, 
Love  was  not,  nor  the  gentle  heart  ere  Love." 
— GUIDO  GUINIOKLLI  (KoMettfs  Translation). 

THERE  was  another  house  besides  the  white 
house  at  Pennicote,  another  breast  besides  Rex 
Gascoigne's,  in  which  the  news  of  Grandcourt's 
death  caused  both  strong  agitation  and  the  ef- 
fort to  repress  it. 

It  was  Hans  Meyrick's  habit  to  send  or  bring 
in  the  Times  for  his  mother's  reading.  She  was 
a  great  reader  of  news,  from  the  widest-reaching 
politics  to  the  list  of  marriages;  the  latter,  she 
said,  giving  her  the  pleasant  sense  of  finishing 
the  fashionable  novels  without  having  read  them, 
and  seeing  the  heroes  and  heroines  happy  without 
knowing  what  poor  creatures  they  were.  On  a 
Wednesday,  there  were  reasons  why  Hans  always 
chose  to  bring  the  paper,  and  to  do  so  about  the 
time  that  Mirah  had  nearly  ended  giving  Mab 
her  weekly  lesson,  avowing  that  he  came  then 
because  he  wanted  to  hear  Mirah  sing.  But  on 
the  particular  Wednesday  now  in  question,  after 
entering  the  house  as  quietly  as  usual  with  his 
latch-key,  he  appeared  in  the  parlor,  shaking  the 
Times  aloft  with  a  crackling  noise,  in  remorseless 
interruption  of  Mab's  attempt  to  render  "  Lascia 
ch'io  pianga"  with  a  remote  imitation  of  her  teach- 
er. Piano  and  song  ceased  immediately :  Mirah, 
who  had  been  playing  the  accompaniment,  invol- 
untarily started  up  and  turned  round,  the  crack- 
ling sound,  after  the  occasional  trick  of  sounds, 
having  seemed  to  her  something  thunderous ; 
and  Mab  said, 

"  0-o-oh,  Hans !  why  do  you  bring  a  more  hor- 
rible noise  than  my  singing  ?" 

What  on  earth  is  the  wonderful  news  ?"  said 
Mrs.  Meyrick,  who  was  the  only  other  person  in 
the  room.  "Any  thing  about  Italy — any  thing 
about  the  Austrians  giving  up  Venice  ?" 

"  Nothing  about  Italy,  but  something  from  It- 
aly," said  Hans,  with  a  peculiarity  in  his  tone  and 
manner  which  set  his  mother  interpreting.  Im- 
agine how  some  of  us  feel  and  behave  when  an 
event,  not  disagreeable,  seems  to  be  confirming 
and  carrying  out  our  private  constructions.  We 
say,  "  What  do  you  think  ?"  in  a  pregnant  tone 
to  some  innocent  person  who  has  not  embarked 
his  wisdom  in  the  same  boat  with  ours,  and  finds 
our  information  flat. 

"Nothing  bad?"  said  Mrs.  Meyrick,  anxiously, 
thinking  immediately  of  Deronda;  and  Mirah's 
heart  had  been  already  clutched  by  the  same 
thought. 

"  Not  bad  for  any  body  we  care  much  about," 
said  Hans,  quickly ;  "  rather  uncommonly  lucky, 
I  think.  I  never  knew  any  body  die  convenient- 
ly before.  Considering  what  a  dear  gazelle  I 
am,  I  am  constantly  wondering  to  find  myself 
alive." 

"Oh  me,  Hans!"  said  Mab,  impatiently,  "if 
you  must  talk  of  yourself,  let  it  be  behind  your 
own  back.  What  is  it  that  has  happened  ?" 

"  Duke  Alphonso  is  drowned,  and  the  Duchess 


246 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


is  alive,  that's  all,"  said  Hans,  putting  the  paper 
before  Mrs.  Meyrick,  with  his  finger  against  a 
paragraph.  "  But  more  than  all  is — Deronda 
was  at  Genoa  in  the  same  hotel  with  them,  and 
he  saw  her  brought  in  by  the  fishermen,  who  had 
got  her  out  of  the  water  time  enough  to  save  her 
from  any  harm.  It  seems  they  saw  her  jump  in 
after  her  husband — which  was  a  less  judicious 
action  than  I  should  have  expected  of  the  Duch- 
ess. However,  Deronda  is  a  lucky  fellow  in  be- 
ing there  to  take  care  of  her." 

Mirah  had  sunk  on  the  music-stool  again,  with 
her  eyelids  down  and  her  hands  tightly  clasped ; 
and  Mrs.  Meyrick,  giving  up  the  paper  to  Mab,  said, 

"  Poor  thing !  she  must  have  been  fond  of  her 
husband,  to  jump  in  after  him." 

"  It  was  an  inadvertence — a  little  absence  of 
mind,"  said  Hans,  creasing  his  face  roguishly, 
and  throwing  himself  into  a  chair  not  far  from 
Mirah.  "  Who  can  be  fond  of  a  jealous  barytone, 
with  freezing  glances,  always  singing  asides  ? — 
that  was  the  husband's  role,  depend  upon  it. 
Nothing  can  be  neater  than  his  getting  drowned. 
The  Duchess  is  at  liberty  now  to  marry  a  man 
with  a  fine  head  of  hair,  and  glances  that  will 
melt  instead  of  freezing  her.  And  I  shall  be  in- 
vited to  the  wedding." 

Here  Mirah  started  from  her  sitting  posture, 
and  fixing  her  eyes  on  Hans  with  an  angry  gleam 
in  them,  she  said,  in  the  deeply  shaken  voice  of 
indignation, 

"  Mr.  Hans,  you  ought  not  to  speak  in  that 
way.  Mr.  Deronda  would  not  like  you  to  speak 
so.  Why  will  you  say  he  is  lucky — why  will 
you  use  words  of  that  sort  about  life  and  death 
— when  what  is  life  to  one  is  death  to  another  ? 
How  do  you  know  it  would  be  lucky  if  he  loved 
Mrs.  Grandcourt  ?  It  might  be  a  great  evil  to 
him.  She  would  take  him  away  from  my  brother 
— I  know  she  would.  Mr.  Deronda  would  not 
call  that  lucky — to  pierce  my  brother's  heart." 

All  three  were  struck  with  the  sudden  trans- 
formation. Mirah's  face,  with  a  look  of  anger 
that  might  have  suited  Ithuriel,  pale  even  to  the 
lips  that  were  usually  so  rich  of  tint,  was  not  far 
from  poor  Hans,  who  sat  transfixed,  blushing  un- 
der it  as  if  he  had  been  the  girl,  while  he  said, 
nervously, 

"  I  am  a  fool  and  a  brute,  and  I  withdraw  ev- 
ery word.  I'll  go  and  hang  myself  like  Judas — 
if  it's  allowable  to  mention  him."  Even  in  Hans's 
sorrowful  moments,  his  improvised  words  had  in- 
evitably some  drollery. 

But  Mirah's  anger  was  not  appeased:  how 
could  it  be  ?  She  had  burst  into  indignant  speech 
as  creatures  in  intense  pain  bite  and  make  their 
teeth  meet  even  through  their  own  flesh,  by  way 
of  making  their  agony  bearable.  She  said  no 
more,  but,  seating  herself  at  the  piano,  pressed 
the  sheet  of  music  before  her,  as  if  she  thought 
of  beginning  to  play  again. 

It  was  Mab  who  spoke,  while  Mrs.  Meyrick's 
face  seemed  to  reflect  some  of  Hans's  discomfort. 

"  Mirah  is  quite  right  to  scold  you,  Hans.  You 
are  always  taking  Mr.  Deronda's  name  in  vain. 
And  it  is  horrible,  joking  in  that  way  about  his 
marrying  Mrs.  Grandcourt.  Men's  minds  must  be 
very  black,  I  think,"  ended  Mab,  with  much  scorn. 

"  Quite  true,  my  dear,"  said  Hans,  in  a  low 
tone,  rising  and  turning  on  his  heel  to  walk  to- 
ward the  back  window. 

"  We  had  better  go  on,  Mab ;  you  have  not 


given  your  full  time  to  the  lesson,"  said  Mirah, 
in  a  higher  tone  than  usual.  "Will  you  sing 
this  again,  or  shall  I  sing  it  to  you  ?" 

"  Oh,  please  sing  it  to  me,"  said  Mab,  rejoiced 
to  take  no  more  notice  of  what  had  happened. 

And  Mirah  immediately  sang  "  Lascia  ch'io  pi- 
anga,"  giving  forth  its  melodious  sobs  and  cries 
with  new  fullness  and  energy.  Hans  paused  in 
his  walk  and  leaned  against  the  mantel  -  piece, 
keeping  his  eyes  carefully  away  from  his  moth- 
er's. When  Mirah  had  sung  her  last  note  and 
touched  the  last  chord,  she  rose  and  said,  "I 
must  go  home  now.  Ezra  expects  me." 

She  gave  her  hand  silently  to  Mrs.  Meyrick,  and 
hung  back  a  little,  not  daring  to  look  at  her,  in- 
stead of  kissing  her  as  usual.  But  the  little 
mother  drew  Mirah's  face  down  to  hers,  and  said, 
soothingly,  "  God  bless  you,  my  dear  I"  Mirah 
felt  that  she  had  committed  an  offense  against 
Mrs.  Meyrick  by  angrily  rebuking  Hans,  and  mixed 
with  the  rest  of  her  suffering  was  the  sense  that 
she  had  shown  something  like  a  proud  ingrati- 
tude, an  unbecoming  assertion  of  superiority. 
And  her  friend  had  divined  this  compunction. 

Meanwhile  Hans  had  seized  his  wide-awake, 
and  was  ready  to  open  the  door. 

"  Now,  Hans,"  said  Mab,  with  what  was  really 
a  sister's  tenderness  cunningly  disguised,  "you 
are  not  going  to  walk  home  with  Mirah.  I  am 
sure  she  would  rather  not.  You  are  so  dreadful- 
ly disagreeable  to-day." 

"  I  shall  go  to  take  care  of  her,  if  she  does  not 
forbid  me,"  said  Hans,  opening  the  door. 

Mirah  said  nothing,  and  when  he  had  opened 
the  outer  door  for  her  and  closed  it  behind  him, 
he  walked  by  her  side  unforbidden.  She  had 
not  the  courage  to  begin  speaking  to  him  again 
— conscious  that  she  had  perhaps  been  unbecom- 
ingly severe  in  her  words  to  him,  yet  finding  only 
severer  words  behind  them  in  her  heart.  Besides, 
she  was  pressed  upon  by  a  crowd  of  thoughts 
thrusting  themselves  forward  as  interpreters  of 
that  consciousness  which  still  remained  unut- 
tered  to  herself. 

Hans,  on  his  side,  had  a  mind  equally  busy. 
Mirah's  anger  had  waked  in  him  a  new  percep- 
tion, and  with  it  the  unpleasant  sense  that  he 
was  a  dolt  not  to  have  had  it  before.  Suppose 
Mirah's  heart  were  entirely  preoccupied  with 
Deronda  in  another  character  than  that  of  her 
own  and  her  brother's  benefactor:  the  supposi- 
tion was  attended  in  Hans's  mind  with  anxieties 
which,  to  do  him  justice,  were  not  altogether  self- 
ish. He  had  a  strong  persuasion,  which  only  di- 
rect evidence  to  the  contrary  could  have  dis- 
sipated, that  there  was  a  serious  attachment 
between  Deronda  and  Mrs.  Grandcourt ;  he  had 
pieced  together  many  fragments  of  observation 
and  gradually  gathered  knowledge,  completed  by 
what  his  sisters  had  heard  from  Anna  Gascoigne, 
which  convinced  him  not  only  that  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  had  a  passion  for  Deronda,  but  also,  not- 
withstanding his  friend's  austere  self-repression, 
that  Deronda's  susceptibility  about  her  was  the 
sign  of  concealed  love.  Some  men,  having  such 
a  conviction,  would  have  avoided  allusions  that 
could  have  roused  that  susceptibility ;  but  Hans's 
talk  naturally  fluttered  toward  mischief,  and  he 
was  given  to  a  form  of  experiment  on  live  ani- 
mals which  consisted  in  irritating  his  friends 
playfully.  His  experiments  had  ended  in  satis- 
fying him  that  what  he  thought  likely  was  true. 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND   SEED. 


247 


On  the  other  hand,  any  susceptibility  Deronda  j 
had  manifested  about  a  lover's  attentions  being 
shown  to  Mirah,  Hans  took  to  be  sufficiently  ac-  j 
counted  for  by  the  alleged  reason,  namely,  her  de- 
pendent position ;  for  he  credited  his  friend  with 
all  possible  unselfish  anxiety  for  those  whom  he 
.could  rescue  or  protect.  And  Deronda's  insist- 
ence that  Mirah  would  never  marry  one  who  was 
not  a  Jew  necessarily  seemed  to  exclude  himself, 
since  Hans  shared  the  ordinary  opinion,  which  he 
knew  nothing  to  disturb,  that  Deronda  was  the 
son  of  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger. 

Thus  he  felt  himself  in  clearness  about  the 
state  of  Deronda's  affections ;  but  now,  the  events 
which  really  struck  him  as  concurring  toward 
the  desirable  union  with  Mrs.  Grandcourt  had 
called  forth  a  flash  of  revelation  from  Mirah — a 
betrayal  of  her  passionate  feeling  on  this  subject 
which  made  him  melancholy  on  her  account  as 
well  as  his  own — yet  on  the  whole  less  melan- 
choly than  if  he  had  imagined  Derouda's  hopes 
fixed  on  her.  It  is  not  sublime,  but  it  is  com- 
mon, for  a  man  to  see  the  beloved  object  unhap- 
py because  his  rival  loves  another,  with  more  for- 
titude and  a  milder  jealousy  than  if  he  saw  her 
entirely  happy  in  his  rival.  At  least,  it  was  so 
with  the  mercurial  Hans,  who  fluctuated  between 
the  contradictory  states,  of  feeling  wounded  be- 
cause Mirah  was  wounded,  and  of  being  almost 
obliged  to  Deronda  for  loving  somebody  else.  It 
was  impossible  for  him  to  give  Mirah  any  direct 
sign  of  the  way  in  which  he  had  understood  her 
anger,  yet  he  longed  that  his  speechless  compan- 
ionship should  be  eloquent  in  a  tender,  penitent 
sympathy  which  is  an  admissible  form  of  wooing 
a  bruised  heart. 

Thus  the  two  went  side  by  side  in  a  compan- 
ionship that  yet  seemed  an  agitated  communica- 
tion, like  that  of  two  chords  whose  quick  vibra- 
tions lie  outside  our  hearing.  But  when  they 
reached  the  door  of  Mirah's  home,  and  Hans  said 
"  Good-by,"  putting  out  his  hand  with  an  appeal- 
ing look  of  penitence,  she  met  the  look  with  mel- 
ancholy gentleness,  and  said,  "  Will  you  not  come 
in  and  see  my  brother?" 

Hans  could  not  but  interpret  this  invitation 
as  a  sign  of  pardon.  He  had  not  enough  un- 
derstanding of  what  Mirah's  nature  had  been 
wrought  into  by  her  early  experience,  to  divine 
how  the  very  strength  of  her  late  excitement 
had  made  it  pass  the  more  quickly  into  a  reso- 
lute acceptance  of  pain.  When  he  had  said,  "  If 
you  will  let  me,"  and  they  went  in  together,  half 
his  grief  was  gone,  and  he  was  spinning  a  little 
romance  of  how  his  devotion  might  make  him 
indispensable  to  Mirah  in  proportion  as  Deron- 
da gave  his  devotion  elsewhere.  This  was  quite 
fair,  since  his  friend  was  provided  for  according 
to  his  own  heart ;  and  on  the  question  of  Juda- 
ism Hans  felt  thoroughly  fortified:  who  ever 
heard,  in  tale  or  history,  that  a  woman's  love  went 
in  the  track  of  her  race  and  religion  ?  Moslem 
and  Jewish  damsels  were  always  attracted  toward 
Christians,  and  now,  if  Mirah's  heart  had  gone 
forth  too  precipitately  toward  Deronda,  here  was 
another  case  in  point.  Hans  was  wont  to  make 
merry  with  his  own  arguments,  to  call  himself  a 
Giaour,  and  antithesis  the  sole  clew  to  events ; 
but  he  believed  a  little  in  what  he  laughed  at. 
And  thus  his  bird-like  hope,  constructed  on  the 
lightest  principles,  soared  again  in  spite  of  heavy 
circumstance. 


They  found  Mordccai  looking  singularly  hap- 
py, holding  a  closed  letter  in  his  hand,  his  eyes 
glowing  with  a  quiet  triumph  which  in  his  ema- 
ciated face  gave  the  idea  of  a  conquest  over  as- 
sailing death.  After  the  greeting  between  him 
and  Hans,  Mirah  put  her  arm  round  her  broth- 
er's neck  and  looked  down  at  the  letter  in  his 
hand,  without  the  courage  to  ask  about  it,  though 
she  felt  sure  that  it  was  the  cause  of  his  happi- 
ness. 

"A  letter  from  Daniel  Deronda,"  said  Morde- 
cai,  answering  her  look.  "Brief — only  saying 
that  he  hopes  soon  to  return.  Unexpected  claims 
have  detained  him.  The  promise  of  seeing  him 
again  is  like  the  bow  in  the  cloud  to  me,"  contin- 
ued Mordecai,  looking  at  Hans ;  "  and  to  you  also 
it  must  be  a  gladness.  For  who  has  two  friends 
like  him  ?" 

While  Hans  was  answering,  Mirah  slipped  away 
to  her  own  room ;  but  not  to  indulge  in  any  out- 
burst of  the  passion  within  her.  If  the  angels 
once  supposed  to  watch  the  toilet  of  women  had 
entered  the  little  chamber  with  her  and  let  her 
shut  the  door  behind  them,  they  would  only  have 
seen  her  take  off  her  hat,  sit  down,  and  press  her 
hands  against  her  temples  as  if  she  had  sudden- 
ly reflected  that  her  head  ached;  then  rise  to 
dash  cold  water  on  her  eyes  and  brow  and  hair 
till  her  backward  curls  were  full  of  crystal  beads, 
while  she  had  dried  her  brow  and  looked  out  like 
a  freshly  opened  flower  from  among  the  dewy 
tresses  of  the  woodland;  then  give  deep  sighs 
of  relief,  and  putting  on  her  little  slippers,  sit 
still  after  that  action  for  a  couple  of  minutes, 
which  seemed  to  her  so  long,  so  full  of  things  to 
come,  that  she  rose  with  an  air  of  recollection, 
and  went  down  to  make  tea. 

Something  of  the  old  life  had  returned.  She 
had  been  used  to  remember  that  she  must  learn 
her  part,  must  go  to  rehearsal,  must  act  and  sing 
in  the  evening,  must  hide  her  feelings  from  her 
father;  and  the  more  painful  her  life  grew,  the 
more  she  had  been  used  to  hide.  The  force  of 
her  nature  had  long  found  its  chief  action  in 
resolute  endurance,  and  to-day  the  violence  of 
feeling  which  had  caused  the  first  jet  of  anger 
had  quickly  transformed  itself  into  a  steady  fa- 
cing of  trouble,  the  well-known  companion  of  her 
young  years.  But  while  she  moved  about  and 
spoke  as  usual,  a  close  observer  might  have  dis- 
cerned a  difference  between  this  apparent  calm, 
which  was  the  effect  of  restraining  energy,  and 
the  sweet  genuine  calm  of  the  months  when  she 
first  felt  a  return  of  her  infantine  happiness. 

Those  who  have  been  indulged  by  fortune  and 
have  always  thought  of  calamity  as  what  hap- 
pens to  others,  feel  a  blind  incredulous  rage  at 
the  reversal  of  their  lot,  and  half  believe  that 
their  wild  cries  will  alter  the  course  of  the  storm. 
Mirah  felt  no  such  surprise  when  familiar  Sorrow 
came  back  from  brief  absence,  and  sat  down  with 
her  according  to  the  old  use  and  wont.  And  this 
habit  of  expecting  trouble  rather  than  joy  hin- 
dered her  from  having  any  persistent  belief  in 
opposition  to  the  probabilities  which  were  not 
merely  suggested  by  Hans,  but  were  supported 
by  her  own  private  knowledge  and  long-growing 
presentiment  An  attachment  between  Deronda 
and  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  to  end  in  their  future  mar- 
riage, had  the  aspect  of  a  certainty  for  her  feel- 
ing. There  had  been  no  fault  in  him :  facts  had 
ordered  themselves  so  that  there  was  a  tie  be- 


248 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


tween  him  and  this  woman  who  belonged  to  an- 
other world  than  her  own  and  Ezra's — nay,  who 
seemed  another  sort  of  being  than  Deronda,  some- 
thing foreign  that  would  be  a  disturbance  in  his 
life  instead  of  blending  with  it.  Well,  well— but 
if  it  could  have  been  deferred  so  as  to  make  no 
difference  while  Ezra  was  there!  She  did  not 
know  all  the  momentousness  of  the  relation  be- 
tween Deronda  and  her  brother,  but  she  had  seen 
and  instinctively  felt  enough  to  forebode  its  being 
incongruous  with  any  close  tie  to  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  ;  at  least,  this  was  the  clothing  that  Mirah 
first  gave  to  her  mortal  repugnance.  But  in  the 
still,  quick  action  of  her  consciousness,  thoughts 
went  on  like  changing  states  of  sensation  unbro- 
ken by  her  habitual  acts ;  and  this  inward  lan- 
guage soon  said  distinctly  that  the  mortal  repug- 
nance would  remain  even  if  Ezra  were  secured 
from  loss. 

"  What  I  have  read  about  and  sung  about  and 
seen  acted,  is  happening  to  me — this  that  I  am 
feeling  is  the  love  that  makes  jealousy :"  so  im- 
partially Mirah  summed  up  the  charge  against 
herself.  But  what  difference  could  this  pain  of 
hers  make  to  any  one  else  ?  It  must  remain  as 
exclusively  her  own,  and  hidden,  as  her  early 
yearning  and  devotion  toward  her  lost  mother. 
But,  unlike  that  devotion,  it  was  something  that 
she  felt  to  be  a  misfortune  of  her  nature — a  dis- 
covery that  what  should  have  been  pure  gratitude 
and  reverence  had  sunk  into  selfish  pain ;  that 
the  feeling  she  had  hitherto  delighted  to  pour 
out  in  words  was  degraded  into  something  she 
was  ashamed  to  betray — an  absurd  longing  that 
she  who  had  received  all  and  given  nothing 
should  be  of  importance  where  she  was  of  no 
importance — an  angry  feeling  toward  another 
woman  who  possessed  the  good  she  wanted. 
But  what  notion,  what  vain  reliance,  could  it  be 
that  had  lain  darkly  within  her,  and  was  now 
burning  itself  into  sight  as  disappointment  and 
jealousy  ?  It  was  as  if  her  soul  had  been  steep- 
ed in  poisonous  passion  by  forgotten  dreams  of 
deep  sleep,  and  now  flamed  out  in  this  unaccount- 
able misery.  For  with  her  waking  reason  she 
had  never  entertained  what  seemed  the  wildly 
unfitting  thought  that  Deronda  could  love  her. 
The  uneasiness  she  had  felt  before  had  been 
comparatively  vague  and  easily  explained  as  part 
of  a  general  regret  that  he  was  only  a  visitant 
in  her  and  her  brother's  world,  from  which  the 
world  where  his  home  lay  was  as  different  as 
a  portico  with  lights  and  lackeys  was  different 
from  the  door  of  a  tent,  where  the  only  splen- 
dor came  from  the  mysterious  inaccessible  stars. 
But  her  feeling  was  no  longer  vague :  the  cause 
of  her  pain — the  image  of  Mrs.  Grandcourt  by 
Deronda's  side  drawing  him  farther  and  farther 
into  the  distance — was  as  definite  as  pincers  on 
her  flesh.  In  the  Psyche  mould  of  Mirah's  frame 
there  rested  a  fervid  quality  of  emotion  some- 
times rashly  supposed  to  require  the  bulk  of  a 
Cleopatra ;  her  impressions  had  the  thoroughness 
and  tenacity  that  give  to  the  first  selection  of 
passionate  feeling  the  character  of  a  life -long 
faithfulness.  And  now  a  selection  had  declared 
itself  which  gave  love  a  cruel  heart  of  jealousy : 
she  had  been  used  to  a  strong  repugnance  to- 
ward certain  objects  that  surrounded  her,  and  to 
walk  inwardly  aloof  from  them  while  they  touch- 
ed her  sense.  And  now  her  repugnance  con- 
centrated itself  on  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  of  whom  she 


involuntarily  conceived  more  evil  than  she  knew. 
"  I  could  bear  every  thing  that  used  to  be — but 
this  is  worse^this  is  worse ;  I  used  not  to  have 
horrible  feelings !"  said  the  poor  child,  in  a  loud 
whisper  to  her  pillow.  Strange,  that  she  should 
have  to  pray  against  any  feeling  which  concern- 
ed Deronda ! 

But  this  conclusion  had  been  reached  through 
an  evening  spent  in  attending  to  Mordecai,  whose 
exaltation  of  spirit  in  the  prospect  of  seeing  his 
friend  again  disposed  him  to  utter  many  thoughts 
aloud  to  Mirah,  though  such  communication  was 
often  interrupted  by  intervals  apparently  filled 
with  an  inward  utterance  that  animated  his  eyes 
and  gave  an  occasional  silent  action  to  his  lips. 
One  thought  especially  occupied  him. 

"  Seest  thou,  Mirah,"  he  said  once,  after  a  long 
silence, "  the  Shemah,  wherein  we  briefly  confess 
the  divine  Unity,  is  the  chief  devotional  exercise 
of  the  Hebrew ;  and  this  made  our  religion  the 
fundamental  religion  for  the  whole  world;  for 
the  divine  Unity  embraced  as  its  consequence  the 
ultimate  unity  of  mankind.  See,  then — the  na- 
tion which  has  been  scoffed  at  for  its  separate- 
ness  has  given  a  binding  theory  to  the  human 
race.  Now,  in  complete  unity  a  part  possesses 
the  whole  as  the  whole  possesses  every  part :  and 
in  this  way  human  life  is  tending  toward  the  im- 
age of  the  Supreme  Unity :  for  as  our  life  be- 
comes more  spiritual  by  capacity  of  thought,  and 
joy  therein,  possession  tends  to  become  more 
universal,  being  independent  of  gross  material 
contact ;  so  that  in  a  brief  day  the  soul  of  a  man 
may  know  in  fuller  volume  the  good  which  has 
been  and  is,  nay,  is  to  come,  than  all  he  could 
possess  in  a  whole  life  where  he  had  to  follow 
the  creeping  paths  of  the  senses.  In  this  mo- 
ment, my  sister,  I  hold  the  joy  of  another's  fu- 
ture within  me:  a  future  which  these  eyes  will 
not  see,  and  which  my  spirit  may  not  then  recog- 
nize as  mine.  I  recognize  it  now,  and  love  it  so, 
that  I  can  lay  down  this  poor  life  upon  its  al- 
tar, and  say,  '  Burn,  burn  indiscernibly  into  that 
which  shall  be,  which  is  my  love  and  not  me.' 
Dost  thou  understand,  Mirah  ?" 

"A  little,"  said  Mirah,  faintly,  "  but  my  mind 
is  too  poor  to  have  felt  it." 

"And  yet,"  said  Mordecai,  rather  insistently, 
"  women  are  specially  framed  for  the  love  which 
feels  possession  in  renouncing,  and  is  thus  a  fit 
image  of  what  I  mean.  Somewhere  in  the  later 
Midrash,  I  think,  is  the  story  of  a  Jewish  maiden 
who  loved  a  Gentile  king  so  well  that  tins  was 
what  she  did:  She  entered  into  prison  and 
changed  clothes  with  the  woman  who  was  be- 
loved by  the  king,  that  she  might  deliver  that 
woman  from  death  by  dying  in  her  stead,  and 
leave  the  king  to  be  happy  in  his  love  which  was 
not  for  her.  This  is  the  surpassing  love,  that 
loses  self  in  the  object  of  love." 

"No,  Ezra,  no,"  said  Mirah,  with  low-toned  in- 
tensity, "  that  was  not  it.  She  wanted  the  king 
when  she  was  dead  to  know  what  she  had  done, 
and  feel  that  she  was  better  than  the  other.  It 
was  her  strong  self,  wanting  to  conquer,  that 
made  her  die." 

Mordecai  was  silent  a  little,  and  then  argued, 

"  That  might  be,  Mirah.  But  if  she  acted  so, 
believing  the  king  would  never  know  ?" 

"You  can  make  the  story  so  in  your  mind, 
Ezra,  because  you  are  great,  and  like  to  fancy 
the  greatest  that  could  be.  But  I  think  it  was 


BOOK  Vin.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


not  really  like  that.  The  Jewish  girl  must  have 
had  jealousy  in  her  heart,  and  she  wanted  some- 
how to  have  the  first  place  in  the  king's  mind. 
That  is  what  she  would  die  for." 

"My  sister,  thou  hast  read  too  many  plays, 
where  the  writers  delight  in  showing  the  human 
passions  as  indwelling  demons,  unmixed  with  the 
relenting  and  devout  elements  of  the  soul.  Thou 
judgest  by  the  plays,  and  not  by  thy  own  heart, 
which  is  like  our  mother's." 

Mirah  made  no  answer. 


CHAPTER  LXII. 

"Das  Gluck  ist  eine  leictte  Dime, 

"Und  weilt  nicht.  gern  am  selbeu  Ort : 
Sie  streicht  das  Haar  dir  vou  der  Stirue, 
Und  kusst  dich  rasch  and  flatten  fort. 
"Frau  TJngluck  hat  im  Gegentheile 

Dich  Hebefest  an's  Herz  eedruckt  ; 
Sie  sagt,  sie  habe  keine  Eile, 
fietzt  sich  zu  dir  ans  Belt  und  etrickt" 

—HEWS. 

SOMETHING  which  Mirah  had  lately  been  watch- 
ing for  as  the  fulfillment  of  a  threat  seemed  now 
the  continued  visit  of  that  familiar  sorrow  which 
had  lately  come  back,  bringing  abundant  luggage. 

Turning  out  of  Knightsbridge,  after  singing  at 
a  charitable  morning  concert  in  a  wealthy  house, 
where  she  had  been  recommended  by  Klesmer, 
and  where  there  had  been  the  usual  groups  out- 
side to  see  the  departing  company,  she  began  to 
feel  herself  dogged  by  footsteps  that  kept  an 
even  pace  with  her  own.  Her  concert  dress  be- 
ing simple  black,  over  which  she  had  thrown  a 
dust-cloak,  could  not  make  her  an  object  of  un- 
pleasant attention,  and  render  walking  an  im- 
prudence; but  this  reflection  did  not  occur  to 
Mirah :  another  kind  of  alarm  lay  uppermost  in 
her  mind.  She  immediately  thought  of  her  fa- 
ther, and  could  no  more  look  round  than  if  she 
had  felt  herself  tracked  by  a  ghost.  To  turn  and 
face  him  would  be  voluntarily  to  meet  the  rush 
of  emotions  which  beforehand  seemed  intolera- 
ble. If  it  were  her  father,  he  must  mean  to  claim 
recognition,  and  he  would  oblige  her  to  face  him. 
She  must  wait  for  that  compulsion.  She  walked 
on,  not  quickening  her  pace — of  what  use  was 
that  ? — but  picturing  what  was  about  to  happen 
as  if  she  had  the  full  certainty  that  the  man  be- 
hind her  was  her  father;  and  along  with  her 
picturing  went  a  regret  that  she  had  given  her 
word  to  Mrs.  Meyrick  not  to  use  any  conceal- 
ment about  him.  The  regret  at  last  urged  her, 
at  least,  to  try  and  hinder  any  sudden  betrayal 
that  would  cause  her  brother  an  unnecessary 
shock.  Under  the  pressure  of  this  motive,  she 
resolved  to  turn  before  she  reached  her  own  door, 
and  firmly  will  the  encounter  instead  of  merely 
submitting  to  it.  She  had  already  reached  the 
entrance  of  the  small  square  where  her  home 
lay,  and  had  made  up  her  mind  to  turn,  when  she 
felt  her  embodied  presentiment  getting  closer  to 
her,  then  slipping  to  her  side,  grasping  her  wrist, 
and  saving,  with  a  persuasive  curl  of  accent, 
"  Mirah !" 

She  paused  at  once  without  any  start ;  it  was 
the  voice  she  expected,  and  she  was  meeting  the 
expected  eyes.  Her  face  was  as  grave  as  if  she 
had  been  looking  at  her  executioner,  while  his  was 
adjusted  to  the  intention  of  soothing  and  propi- 
tiating her.  Once  a  handsome  face,  with  bright 


color,  it  was  now  sallow  and  deep-lined,  and  k 
that  peculiar  impress  of  impudent  suavity  which 
comes  from  courting  favor  while  accepting  dis- 
respect. He  was  lightly  made  and  active,  with 
something  of  youth  about  him  which  made  the 
signs  of  age  seem  a  disguise ;  and  in  reality  he 
was  hardly  fifty-seven.  His  dress  was  shabby, 
as  when  she  had  seen  him  before.  The  presence 
of  this  unreverend  father  now,  more  than  ever, 
affected  Mirah  with  the  mingled  anguish  of  shame 
and  grief,  repulsion  and  pity — more  than  ever, 
now  that  her  own  world  was  changed  into  one 
where  there  was  no  comradeship  to  fence  him 
from  scorn  and  contempt. 

Slowly,  with  a  sad,  tremulous  voice,  she  said, 
"  It  is  you,  father." 

"  Why  did  you  run  away  from  me,  child  ?"  he 
began,  with  rapid  speech  which  was  meant  to 
have  a  tone  of  tender  remonstrance,  accompanied 
with  various  quick  gestures,  like  an  abbreviated 
finger-language.  "What  were  you  afraid  of? 
You  knew  I  never  made  you  do  any  thing  against 
your  will.  It  was  for  your  sake  I  broke  up  your 
engagement  in  the  Vorstadt,  because  I  saw  it 
didn't  suit  you,  and  you  repaid  me  by  leaving  me 
to  the  bad  times  that  came  in  consequence.  I 
had  made  an  easier  engagement  for  you  at  the 
Vorstadt  Theatre  hi  Dresden :  I  didn't  tell  you, 
because  I  wanted  to  take  you  by  surprise.  And 
you  left  me  planted  there — obliged  to  make  my- 
self scarce  because  I  had  broken  contract.  That 
as  hard  lines  for  me,  after  I  had  given  up  ev- 
ery thing  for  the  sake  of  getting  you  an  educa- 
tion which  was  to  be  a  fortune  to  you.  What 
father  devoted  himself  to  his  daughter  more  than 
I  did  to  you  ?  You  know  how  I  bore  that  disap- 
pointment in  your  voice,  and  made  the  best  of  it; 
and  when  I  had  nobody  besides  you,  and  was  get- 
ting broken,  as  a  man  must  who  has  had  to  fight 
his  way  with  his  brains — you  chose  that  time  to 
leave  me.  Who  else  was  it  you  owed  every  thing 
to,  if  not  to  me  ?  and  where  was  your  feeling  in 
return  ?  For  what  my  daughter  cared,  I  might 
have  died  in  a  ditch." 

Lapidoth  stopped  short  here,  not  from  lack  of 
invention,  but  because  he  had  reached  a  pathetic 
climax,  and  gave  a  sudden  sob,  like  a  woman's, 
taking  out  hastily  an  old  yellow  silk  handker- 
chief. He  really  felt  that  his  daughter  had  treat- 
ed him  ill — a  sort  of  sensibility  which  is  natural- 
ly strong  in  unscrupulous  persons,  who  put  down 
what  is  owing  to  them,  without  any  per  contra. 
Mirah,  in  spite  of  that  sob,  had  energy  enough 
not  to  let  him  suppose  that  he  deceived  her.  She 
answered  more  firmly,  though  it  waa  the  first 
time  she  had  ever  Uvsed  accusing  words  to  him  : 

"  You  know  why  I  left  you,  father ;  and  I  had 
reason  to  distrust  you,  because  I  felt  sure  that 
you  had  deceived  my  mother.  If  I  could  have 
trusted  you,  I  would  have  staid  with  you  and 
worked  for  you." 

"I  never  meant  to  deceive  your  mother,  Mi- 
rah," said  Lapidoth,  putting  back  his  handker- 
chief, but  beginning  with  a  voice  that  seemed  to 
struggle  against  further  sobbing.  "  I  meant  to 
take  you  back  to  her,  but  chances  hindered  me 
just  at  the  time,  and  then  there  came  informa- 
tion of  her  death.  It  was  better  for  you  that  I 
should  stay  where  I  was,  and  your  brother  could 
take  care  of  himself.  Nobody  had  any  claim  on 
me  but  you.  I  had  word  of  your  mother's  death 
from  a  particular  friend,  who  had  undertaken  to 


250 


DANIEL   DEROXDA. 


manage  things  for  me,  and  I  sent  him  over  mon- 
ey to  pay  expenses.  There's  one  chance,  to  be 
sure" — Lapidoth  had  quickly  conceived  that  he 
must  guard  against  something  unlikely,  yet  pos- 
sible — "  he  may  have  written  me  lies  for  the 
sake  of  getting  the  money  out  of  me." 

Mirah  made  no  answer ;  she  could  not  bear  to 
utter  the  only  true  one — "I  don't  believe  one 
word  of  what  you  say" — and  she  simply  showed 
a  wish  that  they  should  walk  on,  feeling  that 
their  standing  still  might  draw  down  unpleasant 
notice.  Even  as  they  walked  along,  their  com- 
panionship might  well  have  made  a  passer-by 
turn  back  to  look  at  them.  The  figure  of  Mirah, 
with  her  beauty  set  off  by  the  quiet,  careful  dress 
of  an  English  lady,  made  a  strange  pendant  to 
this  shabby,  foreign-looking,  eager,  and  gesticu- 
lating man,  who  withal  had  an  ineffaceable  jaun- 
tiness  of  air,  perhaps  due  to  the  bushy  curls  of 
his  grizzled  hair,  the  smallness  of  his  hands  and 
feet,  and  his  light  walk. 

"You  seem  to  have  done  well  for  yourself, 
Mirah  ?  You  are  in  no  want,  I  see,"  said  the  fa- 
ther, looking  at  her  with  emphatic  examination. 

"  Good  friends  who  found  me  in  distress  have 
helped  me  to  get  work,"  said  Mirah,  hardly  know- 
ing what  she  actually  said,  from  being  occupied 
with  what  she  would  presently  have  to  say.  "  I 
give  lessons.  I  have  sung  in  private  houses.  I 
have  just  been  singing  at  a  private  concert." 
She  paused,  and  then  added,  with  significance, "  I 
have  very  good  friends,  who  know  all  about  me." 

"And  you  would  be  ashamed  they  should  see 
your  father  in  this  plight  ?  No  wonder.  I  came 
to  England  with  no  prospect  but  the  chance  of 
finding  you.  It  was  a  mad  quest ;  but  a  father's 
heart  is  superstitious — feels  a  loadstone  drawing 
it  somewhere  or  other.  I  might  have  done  very 
well,  staying  abroad  :  when  I  hadn't  you  to  take 
care  of,  I  could  have  rolled  or  settled  as  easily  as 
a  ball;  but  it's  hard  being  lonely  in  the  world, 
when  your  spirit's  beginning  to  break.  And  I 
thought  my  little  Mirah  would  repent  leaving  her 
father,  when  she  came  to  look  back.  I've  had  a 
sharp  pinch  to  work  my  way ;  I  don't  know  what 
I  shall  come  down  to  next.  Talents  like  mine 
are  no  use  in  this  country.  When  a  man's  get- 
ting out  at  elbows  nobody  will  believe  in  him.  I 
couldn't  get  any  decent  employ  with  my  appear- 
ance. I've  been  obliged  to  go  pretty  low  for  a 
shilling  already." 

M  inili's  anxiety  was  quick  enough  to  imagine 
her  father's  sinking  into  a  further  degradation, 
which  she  was  bound  to  hinder  if  she  could.  But 
before  she  could  answer  his  string  of  inventive 
sentences,  delivered  with  as  much  glibness  as  if 
they  had  been  learned  by  rote,  he  added,  prompt- 
ly* 

"  Where  do  you  live,  Mirah  ?" 

"  Here,  in  this  square.  We  are  not  far  from 
the  house." 

"  In  lodgings  ?" 

"Yes." 

"  Any  one  to  take  care  of  you  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Mirah  again,  looking  full  at  the 
keen  face  which  was  turned  toward  hers — "my 
brother." 

The  father's  eyelids  fluttered  as  if  the  lightning 
had  come  across  them,  and  there  was  a  slight 
movement  of  the  shoulders.  But  he  said,  after 
a  just  perceptible  pause,  "  Ezra  ?  How  did  you 
know — how  did  you  find  him  ?" 


"That  would  take  long  to  tell.  Here  we  are 
at  the  door.  My  brother  would  not  wish  me  to 
close  it  on  you." 

Mirah  was  already  on  the  door-step,  but  had 
her  face  turned  toward  her  father,  who  stood  be- 
low her  on  the  pavement.  Her  heart  had  begun 
to  beat  faster  with  the  prospect  of  what  was  com- 
ing in  the  presence  of  Ezra ;  and  already  in  this 
attitude  of  giving  leave  to  the  father  whom  she 
had  been  used  to  obey— in  this  sight  of  him 
standing  below  her,  wit,h  a  perceptible  shrinking 
from  the  admission  which  he  had  been  indirectly 
asking  for,  she  had  a  pang  of  the  peculiar,  sym- 
pathetic humiliation  and  shame — the  stabbed 
heart  of  reverence  —  which  belongs  to  a  nature 
intensely  filial. 

"Stay  a  minute,  'Liebchen,"  said  Lapidoth, 
speaking  in  a  lowered  tone ;  "  what  sort  of  man 
has  Ezra  turned  out  ?" 

"A  good  man — a  wonderful  man,"  said  Mirah, 
with  slow  emphasis,  trying  to  master  the  agita- 
tion which  made  her  voice  more  tremulous  as  she 
went  on.  She  felt  urged  to  prepare  her  father 
for  the  complete  penetration  of  himself  which 
awaited  him.  "  But  he  was  very  poor  when  my 
friends  found  him  for  me  —  a  poor  workman. 
Once — twelve  years  ago — he  was  strong  and  hap- 
py, going  to  the  East,  which  he  loved  to  think  of ; 
and  my  mother  called  him  back  because — be- 
cause she  had  lost  me.  And  he  went  to  her,  and 
took  care  of  her  through  great  trouble,  and  work- 
ed for  her  till  she  died — died  in  grief.  And  Ezra, 
too,  had  lost  his  health  and  strength.  The  cold 
had  seized  him  coming  back  to  my  mother,  be- 
cause she  was  forsaken.  For  years  he  has  been 
getting  weaker — always  poor,  always  working — 
but  full  of  knowledge,  and  great  -  minded.  All 
who  come  near  him  honor  him.  To  stand  before 
him  is  like  standing  before  a  prophet  of  God" — 
Mirah  ended  with  difficulty,  her  heart  throbbing — 
"  falsehoods  are  no  use." 

She  had  cast  down  her  eyes  that  she  might 
not  see  her  father  while  she  spoke  the  last  words 

inable  to  bear  the  ignoble  look  of  frustration 
that  gathered  in  his  face.  But  he  was  none  the 
less  quick  in  invention  and  decision. 

"  Mirah,  Liebchen,"  he  said,  in  the  old  caressing 
way,  "  shouldn't  you  like  me  to  make  myself  a 
little  more  respectable  before  my  son  sees  me  ? 
If  I  had  a  little  sum  of  money,  I  could  fit  myself 
out  and  come  home  to  you  as  your  father  ought, 
and  then  I  could  offer  myself  for  some  decent 
place.  With  a  good  shirt  and  coat  on  my  back, 
people  would  be  glad  enough  to  have  me.  I  could 
offer  myself  for  a  courier,  if  I  didn't  look  like  a 
broken-down  mountebank.  I  should  like  to  be 
with  my  children,  and  forget  and  forgive.  But 
you  have  never  seen  your  father  look  like  this 
before.  If  you  had  ten  pounds  at  hand — or  I 
could  appoint  you  to  bring  it  me  somewhere — I 
could  fit  myself  out  by  the  day  after  to-morrow." 

Mirah  felt  herself  under  a  temptation  which 
she  must  try  to  overcome.  She  answered,  obli- 
ging herself  to  look  at  him  again, 

"  I  don't  like  to  deny  you  what  you  ask,  father ; 
but  I  have  given  a  promise  not  to  do  things  for 
you  in  secret  It  is  hard  to  see  you  looking 
needy;  but  we  will  bear  that  for  a  little  while; 
and  then  you  can  have  new  clothes,  and  we  can 
pay  for  them."  Her  practical  sense  made  her 
see  now  what  was  Mrs.  Meyrick's  wisdom  in  exr 
acting  a  promise  from  her. 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND   SEED. 


.251 


Lapidotli's  good  humor  gave  way  a  little.  He 
said,  with  a  sneer,  "  You  are  a  hard  and  fast 
young  lady;  you've  been  learning  useful  virtues 
— keeping  promises  not  to  help  your  father  with 
a  pound  or  two  when  you  are  getting  money  to 
dresa  yourself  in  silk — your  father  who  made  an 
idol  of  you,  and  gave  up  the  best  part  of  his  life 
to  providing  for  you." 

"  It  seems  cruel — I  know  it  seems  cruel,"  said 
Mirah,  feeling  this  a  worse  moment  than  when 
she  meant  to  drown  herself.  Her  lips  were  sud- 
denly pale.  "But,  father,  it  is  more  cruel  to 
break  the  promises  people  trust  in.  That  broke 
my  mother's  heart  — it  has  broken  Ezra's  life. 
You  and  I  must  eat  now  this  bitterness  from 
what  has  been.  Bear  it.  Bear  to  come  in  and 
be  cared  for  as  you  are." 

"  To-morrow,  then,"  said  Lapidoth,  almost  turn- 
ing on  his  heel  away  from  this  pale,  trembling 
daughter,  who  seemed  now  to  have  got  the  in- 
convenient world  to  back  her;  but  he  quickly 
turned  on  it  again,  with  his  hands  feeling  about 
restlessly  in  his  pockets,  and  said,  with  some  re- 
turn to  his  appealing  tone,  "  I'm  a  little  cut  up 
with  all  this,  Mirah.  I  shall  get  up  my  spirits 
by  to-morrow.  If  you've  a  little  money  in  your 
pocket,  I  suppose  it  isn't  against  your  promise  to 
give  me  a  trifle — to  buy  a  cigar  with." 

Mirah  could  not  ask  herself  another  question 
— could  not  do  any  thing  else  than  put  her  cold, 
trembling  hands  in  her  pocket  for  her  porte-mon- 
naie,  and  hold  it  out.  Lapidoth  grasped  it  at 
once,  pressed  her  fingers  the  while,  said,  "  Good- 
by,  my  little  girl — to-morrow,  then!"  and  left 
her.  He  had  not  taken  many  steps  before  he 
looked  carefully  into  all  the  folds  of  the  purse, 
found  two  half  sovereigns  and  odd  silver,  and, 
pasted  against  the  folding  cover,  a  bit  of  paper 
on  which  Ezra  had  inscribed,  in  a  beautiful  He- 
brew character,  the  name  of  his  mother,  the  days 
of  her  birth,  marriage,  and  death,  and  the  prayer, 
"  May  Mirah  be  delivered  from  evil !"  It  was 
Mirah's  liking  to  have  this  little  inscription  on 
many  articles  that  she  used.  The  father  read  it, 
and  had  a  quick  vision  of  his  marriage  day,  and 
the  bright,  unblamed  young  fellow  he  was  in  that 
time ;  teaching  many  things,  but  expecting  by- 
and-by  to  get  money  more  easily  by  writing ;  and 
very  fond  of  his  beautiful  bride  Sara — crying 
when  she  expected  him  to  cry,  and  reflecting  ev- 
ery phase  of  her  feeling  with  mimetic  suscepti- 
bility. Lapidoth  had  traveled  a  long  way  from 
that  young  self,  and  thought  of  all  that  this  in- 
scription signified  with  an  unemotional  memory, 
which  was  like  the  ocular  perception  of  a  touch 
to  one  who  has  lost  the  sense  of  touch,  or  like 
morsels  on  an  untasting  palate,  having  shape  and 
grain,  but  no  flavor.  Among  the  things  we  may 
gamble  away  in  a  lazy  selfish  life  is  the  capaci- 
ty for  ruth,  compunction,  or  any  unselfish  regret 
— which  we  may  come  to  long  for  as  one  in  slow 
death  longs  to  feel  laceration,  rather  than  be  con- 
scious of  a  widening  margin  where  consciousness 
once  was.  Mirah's  purse  was  a  handsome  one — 
a  gift  to  her,  which  she  had  been  unable  to  re- 
flect about  giving  away — and  Lapidoth  presently 
found  himself  outside  of  his  reverie,  considering 
what  the  purse  would  fetch  in  addition  to  the 
sum  it  contained,  and  what  prospect  there  was 
of  his  being  able  to  get  more  from  his  daughter 
without  submitting  to  adopt  a  penitential  form 
of  life  under  the  eyes  of  that  formidable  son. 


On  such  a  subject  his  susceptibilities  were  still 
lively. 

Meanwhile  Mirah  had  entered  the  house  with 
her  power  of  reticence  overcome  by  the  crueltj 
of  her  pain.  She  found  her  brother  quietly  read- 
ing and  sifting  old  manuscripts  of  his  own,  which 
he  meant  to  consign  to  Deronda.  In  the  reac- 
tion from  the  long  effort  to  master  herself,  she 
fell  down  before  him  and  clasped  his  knees,  sob- 
bing, and  crying,  "  Ezra,  Ezra !" 

He  did  not  speak.  His  alarm  for  her  was 
spending  itself  on  conceiving  the  cause  of  her 
distress,  the  more  striking  from  the  novelty  in 
her  of  this  violent  manifestation.  But  Mirah's 
own  longing  was  to  be  able  to  speak  and  tell 
him  the  cause.  Presently  she  raised  her  hand, 
and,  still  sobbing,  said,  brokenly, 

"  Ezra,  my  father !  our  father !  He  followed 
me.  I  wanted  him  to  come  in.  I  said  you 
would  let  him  come  in.  And  he  said  No,  he 
would  not  —  not  now,  but  to-morrow.  And  he 
begged  for  money  from  me.  And  I  gave  him 
my  purse,  and  he  went  away." 

Mirah's  words  seemed  to  herself  to  express  all 
the  misery  she  felt  in  them.  Her  brother  found 
them  less  grievous  than  his  preconceptions,  and 
said,  gently,  "  Wait  for  calm,  Mirah,  and  then  tell 
me  all,"  putting  off  her  hat,  and  laying  his  hands 
tenderly  on  her  head.  She  felt  the  soothing  in- 
fluence, and  in  a  few  minutes  told  him  as  exactly 
as  she  could  all  that  had  happened. 

"  He  will  not  come  to-morrow,"  said  Mordecai. 
Neither  of  them  said  to  the  other  what  they  both 
thought,  namely,  that  he  might  watch  for  Mirah's 
outgoings,  and  beg  from  her  again. 

"  Seest  thou,"  he  presently  added,  "  our  lot  is 
the  lot  of  Israel.  The  grief  and  the  glory  are 
mingled  as  the  smoke  and  the  flame.  It  is  be- 
cause we  children  have  inherited  the  good  that 
we  feel  the  evil.  These  things  are  wedded  for 
us,  as  our  father  was  wedded  to  our  mother." 

The  surroundings  were  of  Brompton,  but  the 
voice  might  have  come  from  a  rabbi  transmit- 
ting the  sentences  of  an  elder  time  to  be  regis- 
tered in  Babli — by  which  affectionate-sounding 
diminutive  is  meant  the  vast  volume  of  the  Bab- 
ylonian Talmud.  "The  Omnipresent,"  said  a 
rabbi,  "  is  occupied  in  making  marriages."  The 
levity  of  the  saying  lies  in  the  ear  of  him  who 
hears  it ;  for  by  marriages  the  speaker  meant  all 
the  wondrous  combinations  of  the  universe  whose 
issue  makes  our  good  and  evil. 


CHAPTER  LXIII. 

Moses,  trotz  seiner  Befeindung  der  Knnst,  den- 
noch  selber  ein  grosser  Kuustler  war  nnd  den  wabren 
Kunstlergeist  besass.  Nur  war  dieser  Kunstlergei&t 
bei  ihm,  wie  bei  seinen  agyptischen  Landslenten, 
nnr  nnf  das  Colossale  mid  Unverwu.stliche  gericbtet. 
Aber  nicht  wie  die  Aegypter  formirte  er  seine  Kunst- 
werke  aus  Backstein  und  Granit,  somlern  er  bante 
Mengchenpyrnmiden,  er  meisselte  Menschen-Obelisk- 
en,  er  iiaum  einen  armen  Hirtenstamm  nnd  schuf 
darans  ein  Yolk,  das  ebenfalls  den  Jabrbunderten 

rotzeu  sirilte er  achnf  Israel."— UBINB  :  Gesfcind- 

isse. 

IMAGINE  the  difference  in  Deronda's  state  of 
mind  when  he  left  England,  and  when  he  return- 
ed to  it.  He  had  set  out  for  Genoa  in  total  un- 
certainty how  far  the  actual  bent  of  his  wishes 
and  affections  would  be  encouraged — how  far  the 
claims  revealed  to  him  might  draw  him  into  new 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


paths,  far  away  from  the  tracks  his  thoughts  had 
lately  been  pursuing  with  a  consent  of  desire 
which  uncertainty  made  dangerous.  He  came 
back  with  something  like  a  discovered  charter, 
warranting  the  inherited  right  that  his  ambition 
had  begun  to  yearn  for :  he  came  back  with  what 
was  better  than  freedom — with  a  duteous  bond 
which  his  experience  had  been  preparing  him  to 
accept  gladly,  even  if  it  had  been  attended  with 
no  promise  of  satisfying  a  secret  passionate  long- 
ing never  yet  allowed  to  grow  into  a  hope.  But 
now  he  dared  avow  to  himself  the  hidden  selec- 
tion of  his  love.  Since  the  hour  when  he  left 
the  house  at  Chelsea  in  full-hearted  silence  under 
the  effect  of  Mirah's  farewell  look  and  words — 
their  exquisite  appealingness  stirring  in  him  that 
deeply  laid  care  for  womanhood  which  had  be- 
gun when  his  own  lip  was  like  a  girl's — her  hold 
on  his  feeling  had  helped  him  to  be  blameless  in 
word  and  deed  under  the  difficult  circumstances 
we  know  of.  There  seemed  no  likelihood  that  he 
could  ever  woo  this  creature  who  had  become  dear 
to  him  amidst  associations  that  forbade  wooing ; 
yet  she  had  taken  her  place  in  his  soul  as  a  be- 
loved type,  reducing  the  power  of  other  fascination, 
and  making  a  difference  in  it  that  became  deficien- 
cy. The  influence  had  been  continually  strength- 
ened. It  had  lain  hi  the  course  of  poor  Gwendo- 
len's lot  that  her  dependence  on  Deronda  tended 
to  rouse  in  him  the  enthusiasm  of  self-martyring 
pity  rather  than  of  personal  love,  and  his  less  con- 
strained tenderness  flowed  with  the  fuller  stream 
toward  an  indwelling  image  in  all  things  unlike 
Gwendolen.  Still  more,  his  relation  to  Mordecai 
had  brought  with  it  a  new  nearness  to  Mirah 
which  was  not  the  less  agitating  because  there 
was  no  apparent  change  in  his  position  toward 
her ;  and  she  had  inevitably  been  bound  up  in  all 
the  thoughts  that  made  him  shrink  from  an  issue 
disappointing  to  her  brother.  This  process  had 
not  gone  on  unconsciously  in  Deronda:  he  was 
conscious  of  it  as  we  are  of  some  covetousness 
that  it  would  be  better  to  nullify  by  encouraging 
other  thoughts  than  to  give  it  the  insistency  of 
confession  even  to  ourselves :  but  the  jealous  fire 
had  leaped  out  at  Hans's  pretensions,  and  when 
his  mother  accused  him  of  being  hi  love  with  a 
Jewess,  any  evasion  suddenly  seemed  an  infideli- 
ty. His  mother  had  compelled  him  to  a  decisive 
acknowledgment  of  his  love,  as  Joseph  Kalonymos 
had  compelled  him  to  a  definite  expression  of  his 
resolve.  This  new  state  of  decision  wrought  on 
Deronda  with  a  force  which  surprised  even  him- 
self. There  was  a  release  of  all  the  energy  which 
had  long  been  spent  in  self -checking  and  suppres- 
sion because  of  doubtful  conditions ;  and  he  was 
ready  to  laugh  at  his  own  impetuosity  when,  as 
he  nearcd  England  on  his  way  from  Mainz,  he  felt 
the  remaining  distance  more  and  more  of  an  ob- 
struction. It  was  as  if  he  had  found  an  added 
soul  in  finding  his  ancestry — his  judgment  no 
longer  wandering  in  the  mazes  of  impartial  sym- 
pathy, but  choosing,  with  that  noble  partiality 
whiok  is  man's  best  strength,  the  closer  fellow- 
ship that  makes  sympathy  practical — exchanging 
that  bird's-eye  reasonableness  which  soars  to  avoid 
preference  and  loses  all  sense  of  quality,  for  the 
generous  reasonableness  of  drawing  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  men  of  like  inheritance.  He  wanted 
now  to  be  again  with  Mordecai,  to  pour  forth  in- 
stead of  restraining  his  feeling,  to  admit  agree- 
ment and  maintain  dissent,  and  all  the  while  to 


find  Mirah's  presence  without  the  embarrassment 
of  obviously  seeking  it,  to  see  her  in  the  light  of 
a  new  possibility,  to  interpret  her  looks  and 
words  from  a  new  starting-point.  He  was  not 
greatly  alarmed  about  the  effect  of  Hans's  atten- 
tions, but  he  had  a  presentiment  that  her  feeling 
toward  himself  had  from  the  first  lain  in  a  chan- 
nel from  which  it  was  not  likely  to  be  diverted 
into  love.  To  astonish  a  woman  by  turning  into 
her  lover  when  she  has  been  thinking  of  you 
merely  as  a  lord  chancellor  is  what  a  man  nat- 
urally shrinks  from :  he  is  anxious  to  create  an 
easier  transition. 

What  wonder  that  Deronda  saw  no  other  course 
than  to  go  straight  from  the  London  railway 
station  to  the  lodgings  in  that  small  square  in 
Brompton  ?  Every  argument  was  in  favor  of  his 
losing  no  time.  He  had  promised  to  run  down 
the  next  day  to  see  Lady  Mallinger  at  the  Abbey, 
and  it  was  already  sunset.  He  wished  to  depos- 
it the  precious  chest  with  Mordecai,  who  would 
study  its  contents,  both  in  his  absence  and  in 
company  with  him ;  and  that  he  should  pay  this 
visit  without  pause  would  gratify  Mordecai's 
heart.  Hence,  and  for  other  reasons,  it  gratified 
Deronda's  heart.  The  strongest  tendencies  of  his 
nature  were  rushing  in  one  current — the  fervent 
affectionateness  which  made  him  delight  in  meet- 
ing the  wish  of  beings  near  to  him,  and  the  im- 
aginative need  of  some  far-reaching  relation  to 
make  the  horizon  of  his  immediate,  daily  acts. 
It  has  to  be  admitted  that  in  this  classical,  ro- 
mantic, world-historic  position  of  his,  bringing,  as 
it  were,  from  its  hiding-place  his  hereditary  ar- 
mor, he  wore — but  so,  one  must  suppose,  did  the 
most  ancient  heroes,  whether  Semitic  or  Japhet- 
ic-w-the  summer  costume  of  his  contemporaries. 
He  did  not  reflect  that  the  drab  tints  were  be- 
coming to  him,  for  he  rarely  went  to  the  expense 
of  such  thinking ;  but  his  own  depth  of  coloring, 
which  made  the  becomingness,  got  an  added  ra- 
diance in  the  eyes,  a  fleeting  and  returning  glow 
in  the  skin,  as  he  entered  the  house,  wondering 
what  exactly  he  should  find.  He  made  his  en- 
trance as  noiseless  as  possible. 

It  was  the  evening  of  that  same  afternoon  on 
which  Mirah  had  had  the  interview  with  her  fa- 
ther. Mordecai,  penetrated  by  her  grief,  and 
also  by  the  sad  memories  which  the  incident  had 
awakened,  had  not  resumed  his  task  of  sifting 
papers:  some  of  them  had  fallen  scattered  on 
the  floor  in  the  first  moments  of  anxiety,  and  nei- 
ther he  nor  Mirah  had  thought  of  laying  them  in 
order  again.  They  had  sat  perfectly  still  togeth- 
er, not  knowing  how  long,  while  the  clock  ticked 
on  the  mantel  -  piece,  and  the  light  was  fading. 
Mirah,  unable  to  think  of  the  food  that  she  ought 
to  have  been  taking,  had  not  moved  since  she  had 
thrown  off  her  dust-cloak  and  sat  down  beside 
Mordecai  with  her  hand  in  his,  while  he  had  laid 
his  head  backward,  with  closed  eyes  and  difficult 
breathing,  looking,  Mirah  thought,  as  he  would 
look  when  the  soul  within  him  could  no  longer 
live  in  its  straitened  home.  The  thought  that  his 
death  might  be  near  was  continually  visiting  her 
when  she  saw  his  face  in  this  way,  without  its 
vivid  animation ;  and  now,  to  the  rest  of  her  grief 
was  added  the  regret  that  she  had  been  unable 
to  control  the  violent  outburst  which  had  shaken 
him.  She  sat  watching  him  — her  oval  checks 
pallid,  her  eyes  with  the  sorrowful  brilliancy  left 
by  young  tears,  her  curls  in  as  much  disorder  as 


BOOK  Vni— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


a  just-wakened  child's — watching  that  emaciated 
face,  where  it  might  have  been  imagined  that  a 
veil  had  been  drawn  never  to  be  lifted,  as  if  it 
were  her  dead  joy  which  had  left  her  strong 
enough  to  live  on  in  sorrow.  And  life  at  that 
moment  stretched  before  Mirah  with  more  than 
a  repetition  of  former  sadness.  The  shadow  of 
the  father  was  there,  and  more  than  that,  a  double 
bereavement — of  one  living  as  well  as  one  dead. 

But  now  the  door  was  opened,  and  while  none 
entered,  a  well-known  voice  said,  "Daniel  De- 
ronda — may  he  come  hi  ?" 

"  Come !  come  !"  said  Mordecai,  immediately 
rising  with  an  irradiated  face  and  opened  eyes — 
apparently  as  little  surprised  as  if  he  had  seen 
Deronda  in  the  morning,  and  expected  this  even- 
ing visit ;  while  Mirah  started  up  blushing  with 
confused,  half-alarmed  expectation. 

Yet  when  Deronda  entered,  the  sight  of  him 
was  like  the  clearness  after  rain:  no  clouds  to 
come  could  hinder  the  cherishing  beam  of  that 
moment.  As  he  held  out  his  right  hand  to  Mirah, 
who  was  close  to  her  brother's  left,  he  laid  his 
other  hand  on  Mordecai's  right  shoulder,  and 
stood  so  a  moment,  holding  them  both  at  once, 
uttering  no  word,  but  reading  their  faces,  till  he 
said,  anxiously,  to  Mirah, "  Has  any  thing  happen- 
ed— any  trouble  ?" 

"  Talk  not  of  trouble  now,"  said  Mordecai,  sav- 
ing her  from  the  need  to  answer.  "  There  is  joy 
in  your  face — let  the  joy  be  ours." 

Mirah  thought,  "  It  is  for  something  he  can  not 
tell  us."  But  they  all  sat  down,  Deronda  draw- 
ing a  chair  close  in  front  of  Mordecai. 

"  That  is  true,"  he  said,  emphatically.  "  I  have 
a  joy  which  will  remain  to  us  even  hi  the  worst 
trouble.  I  did  not  tell  you  the  reason  of  my 
journey  abroad,  Mordecai,  because — never  mind 
— I  went  to  learn  my  parentage.  And  you  were 
right.  I  am  a  Jew." 

The  two  men  clasped  hands  with  a  movement 
that  seemed  part  of  the  flash  from  Mordecai's 
eyes,  and  passed  through  Mirah  like  an  electric 
shock.  But  Deronda  went  on  without  pause, 
speaking  from  Mordecai's  mind  as  much  as  from 
his  own, 

"We  have  the  same  people.  Our  souls  have 
the  same  vocation.  We  shall  not  be  separated 
by  life  or  by  death." 

Mordecai's  answer  was  uttered  in  Hebrew,  and 
in  no  more  than  a  loud  whisper.  It  was  in  the 
liturgical  words  which  express  the  religious  bond : 
"  Our  God,  and  the  God  of  our  fathers." 

The  weight  of  feeling  pressed  too  strongly  on 
that  ready-winged  speech  which  usually  moved  in 
quick  adaptation  to  every  stirring  of  his  fervor. 

Mirah  fell  on  her  knees  by  her  brother's  side, 
and  looked  at  his  now  illuminated  face,  which 
had  just  before  been  so  deathly.  The  action  was 
an  inevitable  outlet  of  the  violent  reversal  from 
despondency  to  a  gladness  which  came  over  her 
as  solemnly  as  if  she  had  been  beholding  a  relig- 
ious rite.  For  the  moment  she  thought  of  the 
effect  on  her  own  life  only  through  the  effect  on 
her  brother. 

"  And  it  is  not  only  that  I  am  a  Jew,"  Deron- 
da went  on,  enjoying  one  of  those  rare  moments 
when  our  yearnings  and  our  acts  can  be  com- 
pletely one,  and  the  real  we  behold  is  our  ideal 
good ;  "  but  I  come  of  a  strain  that  has  ardently 
maintained  the  fellowship  of  our  race — a  line  of 
Spanish  Jews  that  has  borne  many  students  and 


men  of  practical  power.  And  I  possess  what 
will  give  us  a  sort  of  communion  with  them. 
My  grandfather,  Daniel  Charisi,  preserved  manu- 
scripts, family  records  stretching  far  back,  in  the 
hope  that  they  would  pass  into  the  hands  of  his 
grandson.  And  now  his  hope  is  fulfilled,  in  spite 
of  attempts  to  thwart  it  by  hiding  my  parentage 
from  me.  I  possess  the  chest  containing  them, 
with  his  own  papers,  and  it  is  down  below  in  this 
house.  I  mean  to  leave  it  with  you,  Mordecai, 
that  you  may  help  me  to  study  the  manuscripts. 
Some  of  them  I  can  read  easily  enough — those 
in  Spanish  and  Italian.  Others  are  in  Hebrew, 
and,  I  think,  Arabic ;  but  there  seem  to  be  Latin 
translations.  I  was  only  able  to  look  at  them 
cursorily  while  I  staid  at  Mainz.  We  will  study 
them  together." 

Deronda  ended  with  that  bright  smile  which, 
beaming  out  from  the  habitual  gravity  of  his 
face,  seemed  a  revelation  (the  reverse  of  the  con- 
tinual smile  that  discredits  all  expression).  Bat 
when  this  happy  glance  passed  from  Mordecai  to 
rest  on  Mirah,  it  acted  like  a  little  too  much  sun- 
shine, and  made  her  change  her  attitude.  She 
had  knelt  under  an  impulse  with  which  any  per- 
sonal embarrassment  was  incongruous,  and  espe- 
cially any  thoughts  about  how  Mrs.  Grandcourt 
might  stand  to  this  new  aspect  of  things — 
thoughts  which  made  her  color  under  Deronda's 
glance,  and  rise  to  take  her  seat  again  in  her  us- 
ual posture  of  crossed  hands  and  feet,  with  the 
effort  to  look  as  quiet  as  possible.  Deronda, 
equally  .sensitive,  imagined  that  the  feeling  of 
which  he  was  conscious  had  entered  too  much 
into  his  eyes,  and  had  been  repugnant  to  her. 
He  was  ready  enough  to  believe  that  any  unex- 
pected manifestation  might  spoil  her  feeling  to- 
ward him — and  then  his  precious  relation  to  broth- 
er and  sister  would  be  marred.  If  Mirah  could 
have  no  love  for  him,  any  advances  of  love  on  his 
part  would  make  her  wretched  in  that  continual 
contact  with  him  which  would  remain  inevitable. 

While  such  feelings  were  pulsating  quickly  in 
Deronda  and  Mirah,  Mordecai,  seeing  nothing  in 
his  friend's  presence  and  words  but  a  blessed 
fulfillment,  was  already  speaking  with  his  old 
sense  of  enlargement  in  utterance : 

"  Daniel,  from  the  first,  I  have  said  to  you,  we 
know  not  all  the  pathways.  Has  there  not  been 
a  meeting  among  them,  as  of  the  operations  hi 
one  soul,  where  an  idea  being  born  and  breath- 
ng  draws  the  elements  toward  it,  and  is  fed  and 
grows?  For  all  things  are  bound  together  in 
that  Omnipresence  which  is  the  place  and  habita- 
tion of  the  world,  and  events  are  as  a  glass  where- 
through our  eyes  see  some  of  the  pathways.  And 
if  it  seems  that  the  erring  and  unloving  wills  of 
men  have  helped  to  prepare  you,  as  Moses  was 
prepared,  to  serve  your  people  the  better,  that 
depends  on  another  order  than  the  law  which 
must  guide  our  footsteps.  For  the  evil  will  of 
man  makes  not  a  people's  good  except  by  stir- 
ring the  righteous  will  of  man ;  and  beneath  all 
the  clouds  with  which  our  thought  encompassea 
the  Eternal,  this  is  clear — that  a  people  can  be 
blessed  only  by  having  counselors  and  a  multi- 
tude whose  will  moves  in  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  justice  and  love.  For  see,  now,  it  was  your 
loving  will  that  made  a  chief  pathway,  and  re- 
sisted the  effect  of  evil ;  for,  by  performing  the 
duties  of  brotherhood  to  my  sister,  and  seeking 
out  her  brother  hi  the  flesh,  your  soul  has  been 


264 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


prepared  to  receive  with  gladness  this  message 
of  the  Eternal:  'Behold  the  multitude  of  your 
brethren.' " 

"  It  is  quite  true  that  you  and  Mirah  have  been 
my  teachers,"  said  Deronda.  "  If  this  revelation 
had  been  made  to  me  before  I  knew  you  both, 
I  think  my  mind  would  have  rebelled  against 
it.  Perhaps  I  should  have  felt  then, '  If  I  could 
have  chosen,  I  would  not  have  been  a  Jew.' 
What  I  feel  now  is — that  my  whole  being  is  a 
consent  to  the  fact.  But  it  has  been  the  gradual 
accord  between  your  mind  and  mine  which  has 
brought  about  that  full  consent" 

At  the  moment  Deronda  was  speaking,  that 
first  evening  in  the  book-shop  was  vividly  in  his 
remembrance,  with  all  the  struggling  aloofness 
he  had  then  felt  from  Mordecai's  prophetic  con- 
fidence. It  was  his  nature  to  delight  in  satisfy- 
ing to  the  utmost  the  eagerly  expectant  soul, 
which  seemed  to  be  looking  out  from  the  face 
before  him,  like  the  long-enduring  watcher  who 
at  last  sees  the  mounting  signal-flame;  and  he 
went  on  with  fuller  fervor : 

"  It  is  through  your  inspiration  that  I  have  dis- 
cerned what  may  be  my  life's  task.  It  is  you  who 
have  given  shape  to  what,  I  believe,  was  an  inher- 
ited yearning — the  effect  of  brooding,  passionate 
thoughts  in  many  ancestors — thoughts  that  seem 
to  have  been  intensely  present  in  my  grandfather. 
Suppose  the  stolen  offspring  of  some  mountain 
tribe  brought  up  in  a  city  of  the  plain,  or  one 
with  an  inherited  genius  for  painting  and  born 
blind — the  ancestral  life  would  lie  within  them 
as  a  dim  longing  for  unknown  objects  and  sen- 
sations, and  the  spell-bound  habit  of  their  inher- 
ited frames  would  be  like  a  cunningly  wrought 
musical  instrument,  never  played  on,  but  quiver- 
ing throughout  in  uneasy  mysterious  meanings 
of  its  intricate  structure  that,  under  the  right 
touch,  gives  music.  Something  like  that,  I  think, 
has  been  my  experience.  Since  I  began  to  read 
and  know,  I  have  always  longed  for  some  ideal 
task,  in  which  I  might  feel  myself  the  heart  and 
brain  of  a  multitude — some  social  captainship, 
which  would  come  to  me  as  a  duty,  and  not  be 
striven  for  as  a  personal  prize.  You  have  raised 
the  image  of  such  a  task  for  me — to  bind  our 
race  together  in  spite  of  heresy.  You  have  said 
to  me,  '  Our  religion  united  us  before  it  divided 
us — it  made  us  a  people  before  it  made  Rabbin- 
hes  and  Karaites.'  I  mean  to  try  what  can  be 
done  with  that  union — I  mean  to  work  in  your 
spirit.  Failure  will  not  be  ignoble,  but  it  would 
be  ignoble  for  me  not  to  try." 

u  Even  as  my  brother  that  fed  at  the  breasts 
of  my  mother,"  said  Mordecai,  falling  back  in  his 
chair  with  a  look  of  exultant  repose,  as  after  some 
finished  labor. 

To  estimate  the  effect  of  this  ardent  outpour- 
ing from  Deronda  we  must  remember  his  former 
reserve,  his  careful  avoidance  of  premature  as- 
sent or  delusive  encouragement,  which  gave  to 
this  decided  pledge  of  himself  a  sacramental  so- 
lemnity, both  for  his  own  mind  and  Mordecai's. 
On  Mirah  the  effect  was  equally  strong,  though 
with  a  difference :  she  felt  a  surprise  which  had 
no  place  in  her  brother's  mind  at  Deronda's  sud- 
denly revealed  sense  of  nearness  to  them :  there 
Beemed  to  be  a  breaking  of  day  around  her  which 
might  show  her  other  facts  unlike  her  forebod- 
ings in  the  darkness.  But  after  a  moment's  si- 
lence Mordecai  spoke  again : 


"  It  has  begun  already— the  marriage  of  our 
souls.  It  waits  but  the  passing  away  of  this 
body,  and  then  they  who  are  betrothed  shall  unite 
in  a  stricter  bond,  and  what  is  mine  shall  be 
thine.  Call  nothing  mine  that  I  have  written, 
Daniel ;  for  though  our  Masters  delivered  right- 
ly that  every  thing  should  be  quoted  in  the  name 
of  him  that  said  it— and  their  rule  is  good— yet 
it  does  not  exclude  the  willing  marriage  which 
melts  soul  into  soul,  and  makes  thought  fuller  as 
the  clear  waters  are  made  fuller,  where  the  full- 
ness is  inseparable  and  the  clearness  is  insepara- 
ble. For  I  have  judged  what  I  have  written,  and 
I  desire  the  body  that  I  gave  my  thought  to  pass 
away  as  this  fleshly  body  will  pass ;  but  let  the 
thought  be  born  again  from  our  fuller  soul  which 
shall  be  called  yours." 

"  You  must  not  ask  me  to  promise  that,"  said 
Deronda,  smiling.  "  I  must  be  convinced  first  of 
special  reasons  for  it  in  the  writings  themselves. 
And  I  am  too  backward  a  pupil  yet.  That  blent 
transmission  must  go  on  without  any  choice  of 
ours ;  but  what  we  can't  hinder  must  not  make 
our  rule  for  what  we  ought  to  choose.  I  think 
our  duty  is  faithful  tradition  where  we  can  at- 
tain it.  And  so  you  would  insist  for  any  one  but 
yourself.  Don't  ask  me  to  deny  my  spiritual 
parentage,  when  I  am  finding  the  clew  of  my  life 
in  the  recognition  of  my  natural  parentage." 

"  I  will  ask  for  no  promise  till  you  see  the  rea- 
son," said  Mordecai.  "  You  have  said  the  truth : 
I  would  obey  the  Masters'  rule  for  another.  But 
for  years  my  hope,  nay,  my  confidence,  has  been, 
not  that  the  imperfect  image  of  my  thought, 
which  is  as  the  ill-shapen  work  of  the  youthful 
carver  who  has  seen  a  heavenly  pattern,  and 
trembles  in  imitating  the  vision  —  not  that  this 
should  live,  but  that  my  vision  and  passion  should 
enter  into  yours — yea,  into  yours ;  for  he  whom  I 
longed  for  afar,  was  he  not  you  whom  I  discern- 
ed as  mine  when  you  came  near  ?  Nevertheless, 
you  shall  judge.  For  my  soul  is  satisfied."  Mor- 
decai paused,  and  then  began  in  a  changed  tone, 
reverting  to  previous  suggestions  from  Deronda's 
disclosure,  "  What  moved  your  parents —  ?"  but 
he  immediately  checked  himself,  and  added, "  Nay, 
I  ask  not  that  you  should  tell  me  aught  concern- 
ing others,  unless  it  is  your  pleasure." 

"  Some  time — gradually — you  will  know  all," 
said  Deronda.  "  But  now  tell  me  more  about  your- 
selves, and  how  the  time  has  passed  since  I  went 
away.  I  am  sure  there  has  been  some  trouble. 
Mirah  has  been  in  distress  about  something." 

He  looked  at  Mirah,  but  she  immediately  turn- 
ed to  her  brother,  appealing  to  him  to  give  the 
difficult  answer.  She  hoped  he  would  not  think 
it  necessary  to  tell  Deronda  the  facts  about  her 
father  on  such  an  evening  as  this.  Just  when 
Deronda  had  brought  himself  so  near,  and  iden- 
tified himself  with  her  brother,  it  was  cutting  to 
her  that  he  should  hear  of  this  disgrace  clinging 
about  them,  which  seemed  to  have  become  part- 
ly  his.  To  relieve  herself  she  rose  to  take  up 
her  hat  and  cloak,  thinking  she  would  go  to  her 
own  room :  perhaps  they  would  speak  more  easi- 
ly when  she  had  left  them.  But  meanwhile  Mor- 
decai said : 

"  To-day  there  has  been  a  grief.  A  duty  which 
seemed  to  have  gone  far  into  the  distance  has 
come  back  and  turned  its  face  upon  us,  and  raistxl 
no  gladness  —  has  raised  a  dread  that  we  must 
submit  to.  But  for  the  moment  we  are  deliver* 


BOOK  VIIL— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


255 


ed  from  any  visible  yoke.  Let  us  defer  speak- 
ing of  it,  as  if  this  evening  which  is  deepening 
about  us  were  the  beginning  of  the  festival  in 
which  we  must  offer  the  first-fruits  of  our  joy, 
and  mingle  no  mourning  with  them." 

Deronda  divined  the  hinted  grief,  and  left  it  in 
silence,  rising  as  he  saw  Mirah  rise,  and  saving  to 
her,  "  Are  you  going  ?  I  must  leave  almost  im- 
mediately— when  I  and  Mrs.  Adam  have  mount- 
ed the  precious  chest,  and  I  have  delivered  the 
key  to  Mordecai — no,  Ezra — may  I  call  him  Ezra 
now  ?  I  have  learned  to  think  of  him  as  Ezra 
since  I  have  heard  you  call  him  so." 

"  Please  call  him  Ezra,"  said  Mirah,  faintly, 
feeling  a  new  timidity  under  Deronda's  glance 
and  near  presence.  Was  there  really  something 
different  about  him,  or  was  the  difference  only  in 
her  feeling  ?  The  strangely  various  emotions  of 
the  last  few  hours  had  exhausted  her ;  she  was 
faint  with  fatigue  and  want  of  food.  Deronda, 
observing  her  pallor  and  tremulousness,  longed 
to  show  more  feeling,  but  dared  not.  She  put  out 
her  hand,  with  an  effort  to  smile,  and  then  he 
opened  the  door  for  her.  That  was  all. 

A  man  of  refined  pride  shrinks  from  making  a 
lover's  approaches  to  a  woman  whose  wealth  or 
rank  might  make  them  appear  presumptuous  or 
low-motived ;  but  Deronda  was  finding  a  more 
delicate  difficulty  in  a  position  which,  superficial- 
ly taken,  was  the  reverse  of  that — though  to  an 
ardent,  reverential  love  the  loved  woman  has  al- 
ways a  kind  of  wealth  and  rank  which  makes  a 
man  keenly  susceptible  about  the  aspect  of  his 
addresses.  Deronda's  difficulty  was  what  any 
generous  man  might  have  felt  in  some  degree; 
but  it  affected  him  peculiarly  through  his  imagi- 
native sympathy  with  a  mind  in  which  gratitude 
was  strong.  Mirah,  he  knew,  felt  herself  bound 
to  him  by  deep  obligations,  which  to  her  sensi- 
bilities might  give  every  wish  of  his  the  aspect 
of  a  claim;  and  an  inability  to  fulfill  it  would 
cause  her  a  pain  continually  revived  by  their  in- 
evitable communion  in  care  for  Ezra.  Here  were 
fears  not  of  pride  only,  but  of  extreme  tender- 
ness. Altogether,  to  have  the  character  of  a 
benefactor  seemed  to  Deronda's  anxiety  an  in- 
surmountable obstacle  to  confessing  himself  a 
lover,  unless  in  some  inconceivable  way  it  could 
be  revealed  to  him  that  Mirah's  heart  had  ac- 
cepted him  beforehand.  And  the  agitation  on 
his  own  account,  too,  was  not  small. 

Even  a  man  who  has  practiced  himself  in  love- 
making  till  his  own  glibness  has  rendered  him 
skeptical,  may  at  last  be  overtaken  by  the  lover's 
awe  —  may  tremble,  stammer,  and  show  other 
signs  of  recovered  sensibility  no  more  in  the 
range  of  his  acquired  talents  than  pins  and  nee- 
dles after  numbness :  how  much  more  may  that 
energetic  timidity  possess  a  man  whose  inward 
history  has  cherished  his  susceptibilities  instead 
of  dulling  them,  and  has  kept  all  the  language  of 
paasion  fresh  and  rooted  as  the  lovely  leafage 
about  the  hill-side  spring ! 

As  for  Mirah,  her  dear  head  lay  on  its  pillow 
that  night  with  its  former  suspicions  thrown  out  of 
shape,  but  still  present,  like  an  ugly  story  which 
has  been  discredited,  but  not  therefore  dissipated. 
All  that  she  was  certain  of  about  Deronda  seem- 
ed to  prove  that  he  had  no  such  fetters  upon  him 
as  she  had  been  allowing  herself  to  believe  in. 
His  whole  manner  as  well  as  his  words  implied 
that  there  were  no  hidden  bonds  remaining  to 


have  any  effect  in  determining  his  future.  But 
notwithstanding  this  plainly  reasonable  infer- 
ence, uneasiness  still  clung  about  Mirah's  heart. 
Deronda  was  not  to  blame,  but  he  had  an  impor- 
tance for  Mrs.  Grandcourt  which  must  give  her 
some  hold  on  him.  And  the  thought  of  any  close 
confidence  between  them  stirred  the  little  biting 
snake  that  had  long  lain  curled  and  harmless  hi 
Mirah's  gentle  bosom. 

But  did  she  this  evening  feel  as  completely  as 
before  that  her  jealousy  was  no  less  remote  from 
any  possibility  for  herself  personally  than  if  her 
human  soul  had  been  lodged  in  the  body  of  a 
fawn  that  Deronda  had  saved  from  the  archers  ? 
Hardly.  Something  indefinable  had  happened 
and  made  a  difference.  The  soft  warm  rain  of 
blossoms  which  had  fallen  just  where  she  was — 
did  it  really  come  because  she  was  there  ?  What 
spirit  was  there  among  the  boughs  ? 


CHAPTER  LXIV. 

"  Qnesta  raontagna  6  tale, 
Che  Bempre  al  cominciar  di  sotto  6  grave, 
E  quanto  nora  pii  va  en  e  men  fa  male." 

—DANTE:  II  Purgatoria. 

IT  was  not  many  days  after  her  mother's  arriv- 
al that  Gwendolen  would  consent  to  remain  at 
Genoa.  Her  desire  to  get  away  from  that  gem 
of  the  sea  helped  to  rally  her  strength  and  cour- 
age. For  what  place,  though  it  were  the  flowery 
vale  of  Enna,  may  not  the  inward  sense  turn  into 
a  circle  of  punishment  where  the  flowers  are  no 
better  than  a  crop  of  flame-tongues  burning  the 
soles  of  our  feet  ? 

"  I  shall  never  like  to  see  the  Mediterrane- 
an again,"  said  Gwendolen  to  her  mother,  who 
thought  that  she  quite  understood  her  child's 
feeling,  even  in  her  tacit  prohibition  of  any  ex- 
press reference  to  her  late  husband. 

Mrs.  Davilow,  indeed,  though  compelled  form- 
ally to  regard  this  time  as  one  of  sevore  calam- 
ity, was  virtually  enjoying  her  life  more  than  she 
had  ever  done  since  her  daughter's  marriage.  It 
seemed  that  her  darling  was  brought  back  to 
her  not  merely  with  all  the  old  affection,  but 
with  a  conscious  cherishing  of  her  mother's  near- 
ness, such  as  we  give  to  a  possession  that  we 
have  been  on  the  brink  of  losing. 

'Are  you  there,  mamma?"  cried  Gwendolen, 
in  the  middle  of  the  night  (a  bed  had  been  made 
for  her  mother  in  the  same  room  with  hers), 
very  much  as  she  would  have  done  in  her  early 
girlhood',  if  she  had  felt  frightened  in  lying  awake. 
'  Yes,  dear.  Can  I  do  any  thing  for  you  ?" 
'  No,  thank  you ;  only  I  like  so  to  know  you  are 
there.  Do  you  mind  my  waking  you?"  (This 
question  would  hardly  have  been  Gwendolen's  in 
her  early  girlhood.) 

"  I  was  not  asleep,  darling." 

"It  seemed  not  real  that  you  were  with  me. 
I  wanted  to  make  it  real.  I  can  bear  things  if 
you  are  with  me.  But  you  must  not  lie  awake 
being  anxious  about  me.  You  must  be  happy 
now.  You  must  let  me  make  you  happy  now  at 
last — else  what  shall  I  do  ?" 

"  God  bless  you,  dear ;  I  have  the  best  happi- 
ness I  can  have,  when  you  make  much  of  me." 

But  the  next  night,  hearing  that  she  was  sigh- 
ing and  restless,  Mrs.  Davilow  said,  "  Let  me  give 
you  your  sleeping  draught,  Gwendolen.'1 


*56     ,. 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


"No,  mamma,  thank  you;  I  don't  want  to 
sleep." 

"  It  would  be  so  good  for  you  to  sleep  more, 
my  darling." 

"  Don't  say  what  would  be  good  for  me,  mam- 
ma," Gwendolen  answered,  impetuously.  "  You 
don't  know  what  would  be  good  for  me.  You 
and  my  uncle  must  not  contradict  me  and  tell 
me  any  thing  is  good  for  me  when  I  feel  it  is  not 
good." 

Mrs.  Davilow  was  silent,  not  wondering  that 
the  poor  child  was  irritable.  Presently  Gwen- 
dolen said, 

"  I  was  always  naughty  to  you,  mamma." 

"  No,  dear,  no." 

"  Yes,  I  was,"  said  Gwendolen,  insistently.  "  It 
is  because  I  was  always  wicked  that  I  am  mis- 
erable now." 

She  burst  into  sobs  and  cries.  The  determina- 
tion to  be  silent  about  all  the  facts  of  her  mar- 
ried life  and  its  close  reacted  in  these  escapes  of 
enigmatic  excitement. 

But  dim  lights  of  interpretation  were  breaking 
on  the  mother's  mind  through  the  information 
that  came  from  Sir  Hugo  to  Mr.  Gascoigne,  and, 
with  some  omissions,  from  Mr.  Gascoigne  to  her- 
self. The  good-natured  Baronet,  while  he  was 
attending  to  all  decent  measures  in  relation  to 
his  nephew's  death,  and  the  possible  washing 
ashore  of  the  body,  thought  it  the  kindest  thing 
he  could  do  to  use  his  present  friendly  intercourse 
with  the  Rector  as  an  opportunity  for  communi- 
cating to  him,  in  the  mildest  way,  the  purport  of 
Grandcourt's  will,  so  as  to  save  him  the  additional 
shock  that  would  be  in  store  for  him  if  he  car- 
ried his  illusions  all  the  way  home.  Perhaps  Sir 
Hugo  would  have  been  communicable  enough 
without  that  kind  motive,  but  he  really  felt  the 
motive.  He  broke  the  unpleasant  news  to  the 
Rector  by  degrees :  at  first  he  only  implied  his 
fear  that  the  widow  was  not  so  splendidly  pro- 
vided for  as  Mr.  Gascoigne,  nay,  as  the  Baronet 
himself  had  expected;  and  only  at  last,  after 
some  previous  vague  reference  to  large  claims 
on  Grandcourt,  he  disclosed  the  prior  relations 
which,  in  the  unfortunate  absence  of  a  legitimate 
heir,  had  determined  all  the  splendor  in  another 
direction. 

The  Rector  was  deeply  hurt,  and  remembered, 
more  vividly  than  he  had  ever  done  before,  how 
offensively  proud  and  repelling  the  manners  of 
the  deceased  had  been  toward  him — remember- 
ed also  that  he  himself,  in  that  interesting  pe- 
riod just  before  the  arrival  of  the  new  occupant 
at  Diplow,  had  received  hints  of  former  entan- 
gling dissipations,  and  an  undue  addiction  to 
pleasure,  though  he  had  not  foreseen  that  the 
pleasure  which  had  probably,  so  to  speak,  been 
swept  into  private  rubbish  heaps,  would  ever 
present  itself  as  an  array  of  live  caterpillars,  dis- 
astrous to  the  green  meat  of  respectable  people. 
But  he  did  not  make  these  retrospective  thoughts 
audible  to  Sir  Hugo,  or  lower  himself  by  express- 
ing any  indignation  on  merely  personal  grounds, 
but  behaved  like  a  man  of  the  world  who  had 
become  a  conscientious  clergyman.  His  first  re- 
mark was, 

"  When  a  young  man  makes  his  will  in  health, 
he  usually  counts  on  living  a  long  while.  Prob- 
ably Mr.  Grandcourt  did  not  believe  that  this 
will  would  ever  have  its  present  effect."  After 
a  moment,  he  added,  "  The  effect  is  painful  hi 


more  ways  than  one.  Female  morality  is  likely 
to  suffer  from  this  marked  advantage  and  prom- 
inence being  given  to  illegitimate  offspring." 

"Well,  hi  point  of  fact,"  said  Sir  Hugo,  in  his 
comfortable  way,  "  since  the  boy  is  there,,  this  was 
really  the  best  alternative  for  the  disposal  of  the 
estates.  Grandcourt  had  nobody  nearer  than  his 
cousin.  And  it's  a  chilling  thouglft  that  you  go 
out  of  this  life  only  for  the  benefit  of  a  cousin. 
A  manv  gets  a  little  pleasure  in  making  his  will,  if 
it's  for  the  good  of  his  own  curly  heads ;  but  it's 
a  nuisance  when  you're  giving  and  bequeathing  to 
a  used-up  fellow  like  yourself,  and  one  you  don't 
care  two  straws  for.  It's  the  next  worst  thing  to 
having  only  a  life  interest  in  your  estates.  No ; 
I  forgive  Grandcourt  for  that  part  of  his  will. 
But,  between  ourselves,  what  I  don't  forgive  him 
for  is  the  shabby  way  he  has  provided  for  your 
niece — our  niece,  I  will  say — no  better  a  position 
than  if  she  had  been  a  doctor's  widow.  Nothing 
grates  on  me  more  than  that  posthumous  grudg- 
ingness  toward  a  wife.  A  man  ought  to  have 
some  pride  and  fondness  for  his  widow,  /should, 
I  know.  I  take  it  as  a  test  of  a  man,  that  he  feels 
the  easier  about  his  death  when  he  can  think  of 
his  wife  and  daughters  being  comfortable  after 
it.  I  h'ke  that  story  of  the  fellows  in  the  Cri- 
mean war,  who  were  ready  to  go  to  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  if  their  widows  were  provided  for." 

"It  has  certainly  taken  me  by  surprise,"  said 
Mr.  Gascoigne,  "  all  the  more  because,  as  the  one 
who  stood  in  the  place  of  father  to  my  niece,  I 
had  shown  my  reliance  on  Mr.  Grandcourt's  ap- 
parent liberality  in  money  matters  by  making  no 
claim  for  her  beforehand.  That  seemed  to  me 
due  to  him  under  the  circumstances.  Probably 
you  think  me  blamable." 

"  Not  blamable  exactly.  I  respect  a  man  for 
trusting  another.  But  take  my  advice.  If  you 
marry  another  niece,  though  it  may  be  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  bind  him  down.  Your 
niece  can't  be  married  for  the  first  time  twice 
over.  And  if  he's  a  good  fellow,  he'll  wish  to  be 
bound.  But  as  to  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  I  can  only 
say  that  I  feel  my  relation  to  her  all  the  nearer, 
because  I  think  that  she  has  not  been  well  treat- 
ed. And  I  hope  you  will  urge  her  to  rely  on  me 
as  a  friend." 

Thus  spake  the  chivalrous  Sir  Hugo,  in  his 
disgust  at  the  young  and  beautiful  widow  of  a 
Mallinger  Grandcourt  being  left  with  only  two 
thousand  a  year  and  a  house  in  a  coal -mining 
district.  To  the  Rector  that  income  naturally 
appeared  less  shabby  and  less  accompanied  with 
mortifying  privations;  but  in  this  conversation 
he  had  devoured  a  much  keener  sense  than  the 
Baronet's  of  the  humiliation  cast  over  his  niece, 
and  also  over  her  nearest  friends,  by  the  conspic- 
uous publishing  of  her  husband's  relation  to  Mrs. 
Glasher.  And,  like  all  men  who  are  good  hus- 
bands and  fathers,  he  felt  the  humiliation  through 
the  minds  of  the  women  who  would  be  chiefly 
affected  by  it;  so  that  the  annoyance  of  first 
hearing  the  facts  was  far  slighter  than  what  he 
felt  in  communicating  them  to  Mrs.  Davilow,  and 
in  anticipating  Gwendolen's  feeling  whenever  her 
mother  saw  fit  to  tell  her  of  them.  For  the  good 
Rector  had  an  innocent  conviction  that  his  niece 
was  unaware  of  Mrs.  Glasher's  existence,  arguing 
with  masculine  soundness  from  what  maidens  and 
wives  were  likely  to  know,  do,  and  suffer,  and 
having  had  a  most  imperfect  observation  of  the 


BOOK  VIIL— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


257 


particular  maiden  and  wife  in  question.  Not  so 
Gwendolen's  mother,  who  now  thought  that  she 
saw  an  explanation  of  much  that  had  been  enig- 
matic in  her  child's  conduct  and  words  before 
and  after  her  engagement,  concluding  that  in 
some  inconceivable  way  Gwendolen  had  been  in- 
formed of  this  left-handed  marriage  and  the  ex- 
istence of  the  children.  She  trusted  to  opportu- 
nities that  would  arise  in  moments  of  affection- 
ate confidence  before  and  during  their  journey 
to  England,  when  she  might  gradually  learn  how 
far  the  actual  state  of  things  was  clear  to  Gwen- 
dolen, and  prepare  her  for  any  thing  that  might 
be  a  disappointment.  But  she  was  spared  from 
devices  on  the  subject. 

"  I  hope  you  don't  expect  that  I  am  going  to 
be  rich  and  grand,  mamma,"  said  Gwendolen,  not 
long  after  the  Rector's  communication ;  "  perhaps 
I  shall  have  nothing  at  all." 

She  was  dressed,  and  had  been  sitting  long  in 
quiet  meditation.  Mrs.  Davilow  was  startled,  but 
said,  after  a  moment's  reflection, 

"  Oh  yes,  dear,  you  will  have  something.  Sir 
Hugo  knows  all  about  the  will." 

"  That  will  not  decide,"  said  Gwendolen,  ab- 
ruptly. 

"  Surely,  dear :  Sir  Hugo  says  you  are  to  have 
two  thousand  a  year  and  the  house  at  Gadsmere." 

"What  I  have  will  depend  on  what  I  accept," 
said  Gwendolen.  "  You  and  my  uncle  must  not 
attempt  to  cross  me  and  persuade  me  about  this. 
I  will  do  every  thing  I  can  do  to  make  you  hap- 
py, but  in  any  thing  about  my  husband  I  must 
not  be  interfered  with.  Is  eight  hundred  a  year 
enough  for  you,  mamma  ?" 

"  More  than  enough,  d/ar.  You  must  not  think 
of  giving  me  so  much."  Mrs.  Davilow  paused  a 
little,  and  then  said,  "  Do  you  know  who  is  to 
have  the  estates  and  the  rest  of  the  money  ?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Gwendolen,  waving  her  hand  in 
dismissal  of  the  subject.  "  I  know  every  thing. 
It  is  all  perfectly  right,  and  I  wish  never  to  have 
it  mentioned." 

The  mother  was  silent,  looked  away,  and  rose 
to  fetch  a  fan-screen,  with  a  slight  flush  on  her 
delicate  cheeks.  Wondering,  imagining,  she  did 
not  like  to  meet  her  daughter's  eyes,  and  sat  down 
again  under  a  sad  constraint.  What  wretched- 
ness her  child  had  perhaps  gone  through,  which 
yet  must  remain  as  it  always  had  been,  locked 
away  from  their  mutual  speech !  But  Gwendo- 
len was  watching  her  mother  with  that  new  div- 
ination which  experience  had  given  her ;  and,  in 
tender  relenting  at  her  own  peremptoriness,  she 
said,  "  Come  and  sit  nearer  to  me,  mamma,  and 
don't  be  unhappy." 

Mrs.  Davilow  did  as  she  was  told,  but  bit  her 
lips  in  the  vain  attempt  to  hinder  smarting  tears. 
Gwendolen  leaned  toward  her  caressingly,  and 
said,  "  I  mean  to  be  very  wise ;  I  do  really.  And 
good — oh,  so  good  to  you,  dear,  old,  sweet  mamma, 
you  won't  know  me.  Only  you  must  not  cry." 

The  resolve  that  Gwendolen  had  in  her  mind 
was  that  she  would  ask  Deronda  whether  she 
ought  to  accept  any  of  her  husband's  money — 
whether  she  might  accept  what  would  enable  her 
to  provide  for  her  mother.  The  poor  thing  felt 
strong  enough  to  do  any  thing  that  would  give 
her  a  higher  place  in  Deronda's  mind. 

An  invitation  that  Sir  Hugo  pressed  on  her 
with  kind  urgency  was  that  she  and  Mrs.  Davilow 
should  go  straight  with  him  to  Park  Lane,  and 
R 


make  his  house  their  abode  as  long  as  mourning 
and  other  details  needed  attending  to  in  London. 
Town,  he  insisted,  was  just  then  the  most  retired 
of  places ;  and  he  proposed  to  exert  himself  at 
once  in  getting  all  articles  belonging  to  Gwen- 
dolen away  from  the  house  in  Grosvenor  Square. 
No  proposal  could  have  suited  her  better  than  this 
of  staying  a  little  while  in  Park  Lane.  It  would 
be  easy  for  her  there  to  have  an  interview  with 
Deronda,  if  she  only  knew  how  to  get  a  letter  into 
his  hands,  asking  him  to  come  to  her.  During  the 
journey  Sir  Hugo,  having  understood  that  she  was 
acquainted  with  the  purport  of  her  husband's 
will,  ventured  to  talk  before  her  and  to  her  about 
her  future  arrangements,  referring  here  and  there 
to  mildly  agreeable  prospects  as  matters  of 
course,  and  otherwise  shedding  a  decorous  cheer- 
fulness over  her  widowed  position.  It  seemed 
to  him  really  the  more  graceful  course  for  a  wid- 
ow to  recover  her  spirits  on  finding  that  her  hus- 
band had  not  dealt  as  handsomely  by  her  as  he 
might  have  done ;  it  was  the  testator's  fault  if 
he  compromised  all  her  grief  at  his  departure  by 
giving  a  testamentary  reason  for  it,  so  that  she 
might  be  supposed  to  look  sad  not  because  he 
bad  left  her,  but  because  he  had  left  her  poor. 
The  Baronet,  having  his  kindliness  doubly  fanned 
by  the  favorable  wind  on  his  own  fortunes  and 
by  compassion  for  Gwendolen,  had  become  quite 
fatherly  in  his  behavior  to  her,  called  her  "  my 
dear,"  and  in  mentioning  Gadsmere  to  Mr.  Gas- 
coigne,  with  its  various  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages, spoke  of  what  "  we"  might  do  to  make 
the  best  of  that  property.  Gwendolen  sat  by  in 
pale  silence  while  Sir  Hugo,  with  his  face  turn- 
ed toward  Mrs.  Davilow  or  Mr.  Gascoigne,  conject- 
ured that  Mrs.  Grandcourt  might  perhaps  prefer 
letting  Gadsmere  to  residing  there  during  any 
part  of  the  year,  in  which  case  he  thought  that 
it  might  be  leased  on  capital  terms  to  one  of  the 
fellows  engaged  with  the  coal :  Sir  Hugo  had 
seen  enough  of  the  place  to  know  that  it  was  as 
comfortable  and  picturesque  a  box  as  any  man 
need  desire,  providing  his  desires  were  circum- 
scribed within  a  coal  area. 

"/shouldn't  mind  about  the  soot  myself,"  said 
the  Baronet,  with  that  dispassionateness  which 
belongs  to  the  potential  mood.  "  Nothing  is  more 
healthy.  And  if  one's  business  lay  there,  Gadg- 
mere  would  be  a  paradise.  It  makes  quite  a  feat- 
ure in  Scrogg's  history  of  the  county,  with  the 
little  tower  and  the  fine  piece  of  water — the  pret- 
tiest print  in  the  book." 

"A  more  important  place  than  Offendene,  I 
suppose  ?"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne. 

"  Much,"  said  the  Baronet,  decisively.  "  I  was 
there  with  my  poor  brother — it  is  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago,  but  I  remember  it  very 
well.  The  rooms  may  not  be  larger,  but  the 
grounds  are  on  a  different  scale." 

"  Our  poor  dear  Offendene  is  empty,  after  all," 
said  Mrs.  Davilow.  "  When  it  came  to  the  point, 
Mr.  Haynes  declared  off,  and  there  has  been  no 
one  to  take  it  since.  I  might  as  well  have  ac- 
cepted Lord  Brackenshaw's  kind  offer  that  I 
should  remain  in  it  another  year  rent  free ;  for  I 
should  have  kept  the  place  aired  and  warmed." 

"  I  hope  you  have  got  something  snug  instead," 
said  Sir  Hugo. 

"  A  little  too  snug,"  said  Mr.  Gascoigne,  smil- 
ing at  his  sister-in-law.  "  You  are  rather  thick 
upon  the  ground." 


258 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


Gwendolen  had  turned  with  a  changed  glance 
when  her  mother  spoke  of  Offendene  being  empty. 
This  conversation  passed  during  one  of  the  long 
unaccountable  pauses  often  experienced  in  for- 
eign trains  at  some  country  station.  There  was 
a  dreamy,  sunny  stillness  over  the  hedgeless  fields 
stretching  to  the  boundary  of  poplars ;  and  to 
Gwendolen  the  talk  within  the  carriage  seemed 
only  to  make  the  dream-land  larger  with  an  indis- 
tinct region  of  coal-pits,  and  a  purgatorial  Gads- 
mere  which  she  would  never  visit ;  jill,  at  her 
mother's  words,  this  mingled,  dozing  vfew  seemed 
to  dissolve  and  give  way  to  a  more  wakeful  vis- 
ion of  Offendene  and  Pennicote  under  their  cool- 
er lights.  She  saw  the  gray  shoulders  of  the 
downs,  the  cattle  -  specked  fields,  the  shadowy 
plantations  with  rutted  lanes  where  the  barked 
timber  lay  for  a  way-side  seat,  the  neatly  clipped 
hedges  on  the  road  from  the  Parsonage  to  Offen- 
dene, the  avenue  where  she  was  gradually  dis- 
cerned from  the  windows,  the  hall  door  opening, 
and  her  mother  or  one  of.  the  troublesome  sisters 
coming  out  to  meet  her.  All  that  brief  experi- 
ence of  a  quiet  home  which  had  once  seemed  a 
dullness  to  be  fled  from  now  came  back  to  her 
as  a  restful  escape,  a  station  where  she  found 
the  breath  of  morning  and  the  unreproaching 
voice  of  birds,  after  following  a  lure  through  a 
long  Satanic  masquerade,  which  she  had  entered 
on  with  an  intoxicated  belief  in  its  disguises,  and 
had  seen  the  end  of  in  shrieking  fear,  lest  she 
herself  had  become  one  of  the  evil  spirits  who 
were  dropping  their  human  mummery  and  hiss- 
ing around  her  with  serpent  tongues. 

In  this  way  Gwendolen's  mind  paused  over  Of- 
fendene and  made  it  the  scene  of  many  thoughts ; 
but  she  gave  no  further  outward  sign  of  interest 
in  this  conversation,  any  more  than  in  Sir  Hugo's 
opinion  on  the  telegraphic  cable  or  her  uncle's 
views  of  the  Church-rate  Abolition  Bill.  What 
subjects  will  not  our  talk  embrace  in  leisurely 
day  journeying  from  Genoa  to  London?  Even 
strangers,  after  glancing  from  China  to  Peru,  and 
opening  their  mental  stores  with  a  liberality 
threatening  a  mutual  impression  of  poverty  on 
any  future  meeting,  are  liable  to  become  excess- 
ively confidential.  But  the  Baronet  and  the  Rec- 
tor were  under  a  still  stronger  pressure  toward 
cheerful  communication :  they  were  like  acquaint- 
ances compelled  to  a  long  drive  in  a  mourning- 
coach,  who  having  first  remarked  that  the  occa- 
sion is  a  melancholy  one,  naturally  proceed  to 
enliven  it  by  the  most  miscellaneous  discourse. 
"  I  don't  mind  telling  you"  said  Sir  Hugo  to  the 
Rector,  in  mentioning  some  private  detail ;  while 
the  Rector,  without  saying  so,  did  not  mind  tell- 
ing the  Baronet  about  his  sons,  and  the  difficulty 
of  placing  them  in  the  world.  By  dint  of  dis- 
cussing all  persons  and  things  within  driving- 
reach  of  Diplow,  Sir  Hugo  got  himself  wrought 
to  a  pitch  of  interest  in  that  former  home,  and 
of  conviction  that  it  was  his  pleasant  duty  to  re- 
gain and  strengthen  his  personal  influence  in  the 
neighborhood,  that  made  him  declare  his  inten- 
tion of  taking  his  family  to  the  place  for  a  month 
or  two  before  the  autumn  was  over;  and  Mr. 
Gascoigne  cordially  rejoiced  in  that  prospect. 
Altogether,  the  journey  was  continued  and  end- 
ed with  mutual  liking  between  the  male  fellow- 
travelers. 

Meanwhile  Gwendolen  sat  by  like  one  who  had 
visited  the  spirit-world,  and  was  full  to  the  lips 


of  an  unutterable  experience  that  threw  a  strange 
unreality  over  all  the  talk  she  was  hearing  of  her 
own  and  the  world's  business;  and  Mrs.  Davi- 
low  was  chiefly  occupied  in  imagining  what  her 
daughter  was  feeling,  and  in  wondering  what  was 
signified  by  her  hinted  doubt  whether  she  would 
accept  her  husband's  bequest.  Gwendolen,  in 
fact,  had  before  her  the  unsealed  wall  of  an  im- 
mediate purpose  shutting  off  every  other  resolu- 
tion. How  to  scale  the  wall  ?  She  wanted  again 
to  see  and  consult  Deronda,  that  she  might  se- 
cure herself  against  any  act  he  would  disapprove. 
Would  her  remorse  have  maintained  its  power 
within  her,  or  would  she  have  felt  absolved  by 
secrecy,  if  it  had  not  been  for  that  outer  con- 
science which  was  made  for  her  by  Deronda  ?  It 
is  hard  to  say  how  much  we  could  forgive  our- 
selves if  we  were  secure  from  judgment  by  an- 
other whose  opinion  is  the  breathing  medium  of 
all  our  joy — who  brings  to  us  with  close  press- 
ure and  immediate  sequence  that  judgment  of 
the  Invisible  and  Universal  which  self -flattery 
and  the  world's  tolerance  would  easily  melt  and 
disperse.  In  this  way  our  brother  may  be  in  the 
stead  of  God  to  us ;  and  his  opinion,  which  has 
pierced  even  to  the  joints  and  marrow,  may  be 
our  virtue  in  the  making.  That  mission  of  De- 
ronda to  Gwendolen  had  begun  with  what  she 
had  felt  to  be  his  judgment  of  her  at  the  gaming- 
table. He  might  easily  have  spoiled  it :  much  of 
our  lives  is  spent  in  marring  our  own  influence 
and  turning  others'  belief  in  us  into  a  widely 
concluding  unbelief  which  they  call  knowledge 
of  the  world,  while  it  is  really  disappointment  in 
you  or  me.  Deronda  had  not  spoiled  his  mission. 

But  Gwendolen  had  forgotten  to  ask  him  for 
his  address  in  case  she  wanted  to  write,  and  her 
only  way  of  reaching  him  was  through  Sir  Hugo. 
She  was  not  in  the  least  blind  to  the  construc- 
tion that  all  witnesses  might  put  on  her  giving 
signs  of  dependence  on  Deronda,  and  her  seek- 
ing him  more  than  he  sought  her :  Grandcourt's 
rebukes  had  sufficiently  enlightened  her  pride. 
But  the  force,  the  tenacity,  of  her  nature  had 
thrown  itself  into  that  dependence,  and  she  would 
no  more  let  go  her  hold  on  Deronda's  help,  or 
deny  herself  the  interview  her  soul  needed,  be- 
cause of  witnesses,  than  if  she  had  been  in  prison 
in  danger  of  being  condemned  to  death.  When 
she  was  in  Park  Lane,  and  knew  that  the  Baronet 
would  be  going  down  to  the  Abbey  immediately 
(just  to  see  his  family  for  a  couple  of  days,  and 
then  return  to  transact  needful  business  for  Gwen- 
dolen), she  said  to  him,  without  any  air  of  hesita- 
tion, while  her  mother  was  present, 

"  Sir  Hugo,  I  wish  to  see  Mr.  Deronda  again  as 
soon  as  possible.  I  don't  know  his  address. 
Will  you  tell  it  me,  or  let  him  know  that  I  want 
to  see  him  ?" 

A  quick  thought  passed  across  Sir  Hugo's  face, 
but  made  no  difference  to  the  ease  with  which  he 
said, "  Upon  my  word,  I  don't  know  whether  he's  at 
his  chambers  or  the  Abbey  at  this  moment.  But 
I'll  make  sure  of  him.  I'll  send  a  note  now  to 
his  chambers  telling  him  to  come,  and  if  he's  at 
the  Abbey,  I  can  give  him  your  message  and  send 
him  up  at  once.  I  am  sure  he  will  want  to  obey 
your  wish,"  the  Baronet  ended,  with  grave  kind- 
ness, as  if  nothing  could  seem  to  him  more  in 
the  appropriate  course  of  things  than  that  she 
should  send  such  a  message. 

But  he  was  convinced  that  Gwendolen  had  a 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


259 


passionate  attachment  to  Deronda,  the  seeds  of 
which  had  been  laid  long  ago,  and  his  former  sus- 
picion now  recurred  to  him  with  more  strength 
than  ever,  that  her  feeling  was  likely  to  lead  her 
into  imprudences  —  in  which  kind-hearted  Sir 
Hugo  was  determined  to  screen  and  defend  her 
so  far  as  lay  in  his  power.  To  him  it  was  as 
pretty  a  story  as  need  be  that  this  fine  creature 
and  his  favorite  Dan  should  have  turned  out  to 
be  formed  for  each  other,  and  that  the  unsuita- 
ble husband  should  have  made  his  exit  in  such 
excellent  time.  Sir  Hugo  liked  that  a  charming 
woman  should  be  made  as  happy  as  possible. 
In  truth;  what  most  vexed  his  mind  in  this  mat- 
ter at  present  was  a  doubt  whether  the  too  lofty 
and  inscrutable  Dan  had  not  got  some  scheme  or 
other  in  his  head  which  would  prove  to  be  dear- 
er to  him  than  the  lovely  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  and 
put  that  neatly  prepared  marriage  with  her  out 
of  the  question.  It  was  among  the  usual  para- 
doxes of  feeling  that  Sir  Hugo,  who  had  given 
his  fatherly  cautions  to  Deronda  against  too 
much  tenderness  in  his  relations  with  the  bride, 
should  now  feel  rather  irritated  against  him  by 
the  suspicion  that  he  had  not  fallen  in  love  as 
he  ought  to  have  done.  Of  course  all  this  think- 
ing on  Sir  Hugo's  part  was  eminently  premature, 
only  a  fortnight  or  so  after  Grandcourt's  death. 
But  it  is  the  trick  of  thinking  to  be  either  pre- 
mature or  behindhand. 

However,  he  sent  the  note  to  Deronda's  cham- 
bers, and  it  found  him  there. 


CHAPTER  LXV. 

"  Oh,  welcome,  pnre-eyed  Faith,  white-handed  Hope, 
Thou  hovering  angel,  girt  with  golden  wings !" 
— MILTON. 

DERONDA  did  not  obey  Gwendolen's  new  sum- 
mons without  some  agitation.  Not  his  vanity, 
but  his  keen  sympathy,  made  him  susceptible  to 
the  danger  that  another's  heart  might  feel  larger 
demands  on  him  than  he  would  be  able  to  ful- 
fill ;  and  it  was  no  longer  a  matter  of  argument 
with  him,  but  of  penetrating  consciousness,  that 
Gwendolen's  soul  clung  to  his  with  a  passionate 
need.  We  do  not  argue  the  existence  of  the  an- 
ger or  the  scorn  that  thrills  through  us  in  a  voice ; 
we  simply  feel  it,  and  it  admits  of  no  disproof. 
Deronda  felt  this  woman's  destiny  hanging  on  his 
over  a  precipice  of  despair.  Any  one  who  knows 
him  can  not  wonder  at  his  inward  confession,  that 
if  all  this  had  happened  little  more  than  a  year 
ago,  he  would  hardly  have  asked  himself  whether 
he  loved  her :  the  impetuous  determining  impulse 
which  would  have  moved  him  would  have  been  to 
save  her  from  sorrow,  to  shelter  her  life  for  ever- 
more from  the  dangers  of  loneliness,  and  carry 
out  to  the  last  the  rescue  he  had  begun  in  that 
monitory  redemption  of  the  necklace.  But  now 
love  and  duty  had  thrown  other  bonds  around 
him,  and  that  impulse  could  no  longer  determine 
his  life ;  still,  it  was  present  in  him  as  a  compas- 
sionate yearning,  a  painful  quivering,  at  the  very 
imagination  of  having  again  and  again  to  meet 
the  appeal  of  her  eyes  and  words.  The  very 
strength  of  the  bond,  the  certainty  of  the  resolve, 
that  kept  him  asunder  from  her,  made  him  gaze 
at  her  lot  apart  with  the  more  aching  pity. 

He  awaited  her  coming  in  the  back  drawing- 
room —  part  of  that  white  and  crimson  space 


where  they  had  sat  together  at  the  musical  party, 
where  Gwendolen  had  said  for  the  first  time  that 
her  lot  depended  on  his  not  forsaking  her,  and 
her  appeal  had  seemed  to  melt  into  the  melodic 
cry,  "  Per  plftd  non  dirmi  addio."  But  the  mel- 
ody had  come  from  Mirah's  dear  voice. 

Deronda  walked  about  this  room,  which  he 
had  for  years  known  by  heart,  with  a  strange 
sense  of  metamorphosis  in  his  own  life.  The  fa- 
miliar objects  around  him,  from  Lady  Mallinger's 
gently  smiling  portrait  to  the  also  human  and  ur- 
bane faces  of  the  lions  on  the  pilasters  of  the 
chimney-piece,  seemed  almost  to  belong  to  a  pre- 
vious state  of  existence,  which  he  was  revisiting 
in  memory  only,  not  in  reality;  so  deep  and 
transforming  had  been  the  impressions  he  had 
lately  experienced,  so  new  were  the  conditions 
under  which  he  found  himself  in  the  house  he 
had  been  accustomed  to  think  of  as  a  home — 
standing  with  his  hat  in  his  hand  awaiting  the 
entrance  of  a  young  creature  whose  life  had  also 
been  undergoing  a  transformation  —  a  tragic 
transformation  toward  a  wavering  result,  in 
which  he  felt  with  apprehensiveness  that  his 
own  action  was  still  bound  up. 

But  Gwendolen  was  come  in,  looking  changed, 
not  only  by  her  mourning  dress,  but  by  a  more 
satisfied  quietude  of  expression  than  he  had  seen 
in  her  face  at  Genoa.  Her  satisfaction  was  that 
Deronda  was  there ;  but  there  was  no  smile  be- 
tween them  as  they  met  and  clasped  hands: 
each  was  full  of  remembrances — full  of  anxious 
prevision.  She  said,  "  It  was  good  of  you  to 
come.  Let  us  sit  down,"  immediately  seating 
herself  in  the  nearest  chair.  He  placed  himself 
opposite  to  her. 

"  I  asked  you  to  come  because  I  want  you  to 
tell  me  what  I  ought  to  do,"  she  began  at  once. 
"  Don't  be  afraid  of  telling  me  what  you  think  ia 
right,  because  it  seems  hard.  I  have  made  up 
my  mind  to  do  it.  I  was  afraid  once  of  being 
poor ;  I  co'uld  not  bear  to  think  of  being  under 
other  people ;  and  that  was  why  I  did  something 
— why  I  married.  I  have  borne  worse  things 
now.  I  think  I  could  bear  to  be  poor,  if  you 
think  I  ought.  Do  you  know  about  my  hus- 
band's will  ?" 

"  Yes,  Sir  Hugo  told  me,"  said  Deronda,  al- 
ready guessing  the  question  she  had  to  ask. 

"  Ought  I  to  take  any  thing  he  has  left  me  ? 
I  will  tell  you  what  I  have  been  thinking,"  said 
Gwendolen,  with  a  more  nervous  eagerness.  "  Per- 
haps you  may  not  quite  know  that  I  really  did 
think  a  good  deal  about  my  mother  when  I  mar- 
ried. I  was  selfish,  but  I  did  love  her,  and  feel 
about  her  poverty ;  and  what  comforted  me  most 
at  first,  when  I  was  miserable,  was  her  being  bet- 
ter off  because  I  had  married.  The  thing  that 
would  be  hardest  to  me  now  would  be  to  see  her 
in  poverty  again ;  and  I  have  been  thinking  that 
if  I  took  enough  to  provide  for  her,  and  no  more 
— nothing  for  myself — it  would  not  be  wrong; 
for  I  was  very  precious  to  my  mother — and  he 
took  me  from  her — and  he  meant — and  if  she 
had  known — " 

Gwendolen  broke  off.  She  had  been  prepar- 
ing herself  for  this  interview  by  thinking  of  hard- 
ly any  thing  else  than  this  question  of  right  to- 
ward her  mother ;  but  the  question  had  carried 
with  it  thoughts  and  reasons  which  it  was  im- 
possible for  her  to  utter,  and  these  perilous  re- 
membrances swarmed  between  her  words,  mak- 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


ing  her  speech  more  and  more  agitated  and  trem- 
ulous. She  looked  down  helplessly  at  her  hands, 
now  unladen  of  all  rings  except  her  wedding-ring. 

"Do  not  hurt  yourself  by  speaking  of  that," 
said  Deronda,  tenderly.  "  There  is  no  need ;  the 
case  is  very  simple.  I  think  I  can  hardly  judge 
wrongly  about  it.  You  consult  me  because  I  am 
the  only  person  to  whom  you  hare  confided  the 
most  painful  part  of  your  experience ;  and  I  can 
understand  your  scruples."  He  did  not  go  on 
immediately,  waiting  for  her  to  recover  herself. 
The  silence  seemed  to  Gwendolen  full  of  the 
tenderness  that  she  heard  in  his  voice,  and  she 
had  courage  to  lift  up  her  eyes  and  look  at  him 
as  he  said,  "You  are  conscious  of  something 
which  you  feel  to  be  a  crime  toward  one  who  is 
dead.  You  think  that  you  have  forfeited  all 
claim  as  a  wife.  You  shrink  from  taking  what 
was  his.  You  want  to  keep  yourself  pure  from 
profiting  by  his  death.  Your  feeling  even  urges 
you  to  some  self -punishment  —  some  scourging 
of  the  self  that  disobeyed  your  better  will— the 
will  that  struggled  against  temptation.  I  have 
known  something  of  that  myself.  Do  I  under- 
stand you  ?" 

"Yes — at  least,  I  want  to  be  good— not  like 
what  I  have  been,"  said  Gwendolen.  "  I  will  try 
to  bear  what  you  think  I  ought  to  bear.  I  have 
tried  to  tell  you  the  worst  about  myself.  What 
ought  I  to  do  ?" 

"  If  no  one  but  yourself  were  concerned  in  this 
question  of  income,"  said  Deronda,  "I  should 
hardly  dare  to  urge  you  against  any  remorseful 
prompting ;  but  I  take  as  a  guide  now  your  feel- 
ing about  Mrs.  Davilow,  which  seems  to  me  quite 
just.  I  can  not  think  that  your  husband's  dues 
even  to  yourself  are  nullified  by  any  act  you  have 
committed.  He  voluntarily  entered  into  your  life, 
and  affected  its  course  in  what  is  always  the  most 
momentous  way.  But,  setting  that  aside,  it  was 
due  from  him  in  his  position  that  he  should  pro- 
vide for  your  mother,  and  he  of  course  understood 
that  if  this  will  took  effect  she  would  share  the 
provision  he  had  made  for  you." 

"  She  has  had  eight  hundred  a  year.  What  I 
thought  of  was  to  take  that,  and  leave  the  rest," 
said  Gwendolen.  She  had  been  so  long  inwardly 
arguing  for  this  as  a  permission  that  her  mind 
could  not  at  once  take  another  attitude. 

"I  think  it  is  not  your  duty  to  fix  a  limit  in 
that  way,"  said  Deronda.  "  You  would  be  making 
a  painful  enigma  for  Mrs.  Davilow ;  an  income 
from  which  you  shut  yourself  out  must  be  im- 
bittered  to  her.  And  your  own  course  would 
become  too  difficult.  We  agreed  at  Genoa  that 
the  burden  on  your  conscience  is  what  no  one 
ought  to  be  admitted  to  the  knowledge  of.  The 
future  beneficence  of  your  life  will  be  best  fur- 
thered by  your  saving  all  others  from  the  pain 
of  that  knowledge.  In  my  opinion,  you  ought 
simply  to  abide  by  the  provisions  of  your  hus- 
band's will,  and  let  your  remorse  tell  only  on  the 
use  that  you  will  make  of  your  monetary  inde- 
pendence." 

In  uttering  the  last  sentence,  Deronda  automat- 
ically took  up  his  hat,  which  he  had  laid  on  the 
floor  beside  him.  Gwendolen,  sensitive  to  his 
slightest  movement,  felt  her  heart  giving  a  great 
leap,  as  if  it  too  had  a  consciousness  of  its  own, 
and  would  hinder  him  from  going:  in  the  same 
moment  she  rose  from  her  chair,  unable  to  reflect 
that  the  movement  was  an  acceptance  of  his  ap- 


parent intention  to  leave  her ;  and  Deronda,  of 
course,  also  rose,  advancing  a  little. 

"  I  will  do  what  you  tell  me,"  said  Gwendolen, 
hurriedly ;  "  but  what  else  shall  I  do  ?"  No  oth- 
er than  these  simple  words  were  possible  to  her ; 
and  even  these  were  too  much  for  her  in  a  state 
of  emotion  where  her  proud  secrecy  was  disen- 
throned.  As  the  child-like  sentences  fell  from  her 
lips,  they  reacted  on  her  like  a  picture  of  her  own 
helplessness,  and  she  could  not  check  the  sob 
which  sent  the  large  tears  to  her  eyes.  Deronda, 
too,  felt  a  crushing  pain ;  but  imminent  conse- 
quences were  visible  to  him,  and  urged  him  to 
the  utmost  exertion  of  conscience.  When  she 
had  pressed  her  tears  away,  he  said,  in  a  gently 
questioning  tone, 

"  You  will  probably  be  soon  going  with  Mrs. 
Davilow  into  the  country  ?" 

"  Yes,  in  a  week  or  ten  days."  Gwendolen 
waited  an  instant,  turning  her  eyes  vaguely  to- 
ward the  window,  as  if  looking  at  some  imagined 
prospect.  "I  want  to  be  kind  to  them  all— they 
can  be  happier  than  I  can.  Is  that  the  best  I 
can  do?" 

"I  think  so.  It  is  a  duty  that  can  not  be 
doubtful,"  said  Deronda.  He  paused  a  little  be- 
tween his  sentences,  feeling  a  weight  of  anxiety 
on  all  his  words.  "  Other  duties  will  spring  from 
it.  Looking  at  your  life  as  a  debt  may  seem  the 
dreariest  view  of  things  at  a  distance ;  but  it  can 
not  really  be  so.  What  makes  life  dreary  is  the 
want  of  motive ;  but  once  beginning  to  act  with 
that  penitential,  loving  purpose  you  have  in  your 
mind,  there  will  be  unexpected  satisfactions — 
there  will  be  newly  opening  needs— continually 
coming  to  carry  you  on  from  day  to  day.  You 
will  find  your  life  growing  like  a  plant." 

Gwendolen  turned  her  eyes  on  him  with  the 
look  of  one  athirst  toward  the  sound  of  unseen 
waters.  Deronda  felt  the  look  as  if  she  had  been 
stretching  her  arms  toward  him  from  a  forsaken 
shore.  His  voice  took  an  affectionate  imploring- 
ness  when  he  said, 

"  This  sorrow,  which  has  cut  down  to  the  root, 
has  come  to  you  while  you  are  so  young — try  to 
think  of  it,  not  as  a  spoiling  of  your  life,  but  as 
a  preparation  for  it.  Let  it  be  a  preparation — " 
Any  one  overhearing  his  tones  would  have  thought 
he  was  entreating  for  his  own  happiness.  "  See ! 
you  have  been  saved  from  the  worst  evils  that 
might  have  come  from  your  marriage,  which  you 
feel  was  wrong.  You  have  had  a  vision  of  inju- 
rious, selfish  action — a  vision  of  possible  degrada- 
tion ;  think  that  a  severe  angel,  seeing  you  along 
the  road  of  error,  grasped  you  by  the  wrist,  and 
showed  you  the  horror  of  the  life  you  must  avoid. 
And  it  has  come  to  you  in  your  spring-time. 
Think  of  it  as  a  preparation.  You  can,  you  will, 
be  among  the  best  of  women,  such  as  make  oth- 
ers glad  that  they  were  born." 

The  words  were  like  the  touch  of  a  miraculous 
hand  to  Gwendolen.  Mingled  emotions  streamed 
through  her  frame  with  a  strength  that  seemed 
the  beginning  of  a  new  existence,  having  some 
new  powers  or  other  which  stirred  in  her  vague- 
ly. So  pregnant  is  the  divine  hope  of  moral  re- 
covery with  the  energy  that  fulfills  it.  So  potent 
in  us  is  the  infused  action  of  another  soul,  before 
which  we  bow  in  complete  love.  But  the  new 
existence  seemed  inseparable  from  Deronda :  the 
hope  seemed  to  make  his  presence  permanent.  It 
was  not  her  thought,  that  he  loved  her  and  would 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


261 


cling  to  her — a  thought  would  have  tottered  with 
improbability :  it  was  her  spiritual  breath.  For 
the  first  time  since  that  terrible  moment  on  the 
sea  a  flush  rose  and  spread  over  her  cheek,  brow, 
and  neck,  deepened  an  instant  or  two,  and  then 
gradually  disappeared.  She  did  not  speak. 

Deronda  advanced  and  put  out  his  hand,  say- 
ing, "  I  must  not  weary  you." 

She  was  startled  by  the  sense  that  he  was  going, 
and  put  her  hand  in  his,  still  without  speaking. 

"  You  look  ill  yet — unlike  yourself,"  he  added, 
while  he  held  her  hand. 

"  I  can't  sleep  much,"  she  answered,  with  some 
return  of  her  dispirited  manner.  "  Things  repeat 
themselves  in  me  so.  They  come  back  —  they 
will  all  come  back,"  she  ended,  shudderingly,  a 
chill  fear  threatening  her. 

"  By  degrees  they  will  be  less  insistent,"  said 
Deronda.  He  could  not  drop  her  hand  or  move 
away  from  her  abruptly. 

"  Sir  Hugo  says  he  shall  come  to  stay  at  Dip- 
low,"  said  Gwendolen,  snatching  at  previously  in- 
tended words  which  had  slipped  away  from  her. 
"  You  will  come  too." 

"Probably,"  said  Deronda;  and  then,  feeling 
that  the  word  was  cold,  he  added,  correctively, 
"  Yes,  I  shall  come,"  and  then  released  her  hand, 
with  the  final  friendly  pressure  of  one  who  has 
virtually  said  good-by. 

"And  not  again  here,  before  I  leave  town?" 
said  Gwendolen,  with  timid  sadness,  looking  as 
pallid  as  ever. 

What  could  Deronda  say?  "If  I  can  be  of 
any  use — if  you  wish  me — certainly  I  will." 

"  I  must  wish  it,"  said  Gwendolen,  impetuously ; 
"  you  know  I  must  wish  it.  What  strength  have 
I  ?  Who  else  is  there  ?"  Again  a  sob  was  rising. 
Deronda  felt  a  pang,  which  showed  itself  in  his 
face.  He  looked  miserable,  as  he  said,  "  I  will 
certainly  come." 

Gwendolen  perceived  the  change  in  his  face ; 
but  the  intense  relief  of  expecting  him  to  come 
again  could  not  give  way  to  any  other  feeling,  and 
there  was  a  recovery  of  the  inspired  hope  and 
courage  in  her. 

"  Don't  be  unhappy  about  me,"  she  said,  hi  a 
tone  of  affectionate  assurance.  "  I  shall  remem- 
ber your  words — every  one  of  them.  I  shall  re- 
member what  you  believe  about  me ;  I  shall  try." 
She  looked  at  him  firmly,  and  put  out  her  hand 
again  as  if  she  had  forgotten  what  had  passed 
since  those  words  of  his  which  she  promised  to 
remember.  But  there  was  no  approach  to  a  smile 
on  her  lips.  She  had  never  smiled  since  her  hus- 
band's death.  When  she  stood  still  and  in  si- 
lence, she  looked  like  a  melancholy  statue  of  the 
Gwendolen  whose  laughter  had  once  been  so 
ready  when  others  were  grave. 

It  is  only  by  remembering  the  searching  an- 
guish which  had  changed  the  aspect  of  the  world 
for  her  that  we  can  understand  her  behavior  to 
Deronda — the  unreflecting  openness,  nay,  the  im- 
portunate pleading,  with  which  she  expressed  her 
dependence  on  him.  Considerations  such  as 
would  have  filled  the  minds  of  indifferent  spec- 
tators could  not  occur  to  her,  any  more  than  if 
flames  had  been  mounting  around  her,  and  she 
had  flung  herself  into  his  opened  arms  and  clung 
about  his  neck  that  he  might  carry  her  into  safe- 
ty. She  identified  him  with  the  struggling  regen- 
erative process  in  her  which  had  begun  with  his 
action.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  she  saw  her  own 


necessity  reflected  in  his  feeling?  She  was  in 
that  state  of  unconscious  reliance  and  expectation 
which  is  a  common  experience  with  us  when  we 
are  preoccupied  with  our  own  trouble  or  our  own 
purposes.  We  diffuse  our  feeling  over  others, 
and  count  on  their  acting  from  our  motives.  Her 
imagination  had  not  been  turned  to  a  future  un- 
ion with  Deronda  by  any  other  than  the  spiritu- 
al tie  which  had  been  continually  strengthening ; 
but  also  it  had  not  been  turned  toward  a  future 
separation  from  him.  Love-making  and  marriage 
— how  could  they  now  be  the  imagery  in  which 
poor  Gwendolen's  deepest  attachment  could  spon- 
taneously clothe  itself?  Mighty  Love  had  laid 
his  hand  upon  her;  but  what  had  he  demanded 
of  her?  Acceptance  of  rebuke — the  hard  task 
of  self-change — confession — endurance.  If  she 
cried  toward  him,  what  then  ?  She  cried  as  the 
child  cries  whose  little  feet  have  fallen  backward 
— cried  to  be  taken  by  the  hand,  lest  she  should 
lose  herself. 

The  cry  pierced  Deronda.  What  position  could 
have  been  more  difficult  for  a  man  full  of  tender- 
ness, yet  with  clear  foresight  ?  He  was  the  only 
creature  who  knew  the  real  nature  of  Gwendolen's 
trouble  :  to  withdraw  himself  from  any  appeal  of 
hers  would  be  to  consign  her  to  a  dangerous  lone- 
liness. He  could  not  reconcile  himself  to  the 
cruelty  of  apparently  rejecting  her  dependence  on 
him ;  and  yet  in  the  nearer 'or  farther  distance  he 
saw  a  coming  wrench,  which  all  present  strength- 
ening of  their  bond  would  make  the  harder. 

He  was  obliged  to  risk  that.  He  went  once 
and  again  to  Park  Lane  before  Gwendolen  left ; 
but  their  interviews  were  in  the  presence  of  Mrs. 
Davilow,  and  were  therefore  less  agitating.  Gwen- 
dolen, since  she  had  determined  to  accept  her  in- 
come, had  conceived  a  project  which  she  liked  to 
speak  of :  it  was,  to  place  her  mother  and  sisters 
with  herself  in  Offendene  again,  and,  as  she  said, 
piece  back  her  life  on  to  that  time  when  they  first 
went  there,  and  when  every  thing  was  happiness 
about  her,  only  she  did  not  know  it.  The  idea 
had  been  mentioned  to  Sir  Hugo,  who  was  going 
to  exert  himself  about  the  letting  of  Gadsmere 
for  a  rent  which  would  more  than  pay  the  rent 
of  Offendene.  All  this  was  told  to  Deronda,  who 
willingly  dwelt  on  a  subject  that  seemed  to  give 
some  soothing  occupation  to  Gwendolen.  He  said 
nothing,  and  she  asked  nothing,  of  what  chiefly 
occupied  himself.  Her  mind  was  fixed  on  his 
coming  to  Diplow  before  the  autumn  was  over ; 
and  she  no  more  thought  of  the  Lapidoths — the 
little  Jewess  and  her  brother — as  likely  to  make 
a  difference  in  her  destiny,  than  of  the  ferment- 
ing political  and  social  leaven  which  was  making 
a  difference  in  the  history  of  the  world.  In  fact, 
poor  Gwendolen's  memory  had  been  stunned,  and 
all  outside  the  lava-lit  track  of  her  troubled  con- 
science, and  her  effort  to  get  deliverance  from  it, 
lay  for  her  in  dim  forgetfulness. 


CHAPTER  LXVI. 

"One  day  still  fierce  'mid  tunny  a  day  struck  calm." 
— BBOWNING:  The  Ring  and  the  Book, 

MEANWHILE  Ezra  and  Mirah,  whom  Gwendolen 
did  not  include  in  her  thinking  about  Deronda, 
were  having  their  relation  to  him  drawn  closer 
and  brought  into  fuller  light. 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


The  father  Lapidoth  had  quit  his  daughter  at 
the  door-step,  ruled  by  that  possibility  of  stak- 
ing something  in  play  or  betting  which  presented 
itself  with  the  handling  of  any  sum  beyond  the 
price  of  staying  actual  hunger,  and  left  no  care 
for  alternative  prospects  or  resolutions.  Until  he 
had  lost  every  thing,  he  never  considered  wheth- 
er he  would  apply  to  Mirah  again  or  whether  he 
would  brave  his  son's  presence.  In  the  first  mo- 
ment he  had  shrunk  from  encountering  Ezra  as 
he  would  have  shrunk  from  any  other  situation 
of  disagreeable  constraint ;  and  the  possession  of 
Mirah's  purse  was  enough  to  banish  the  thought 
.of  future  necessities.  The  gambling  appetite  is 
more  absolutely  dominant  than  bodily  hunger, 
which  can"  be  neutralized  by  an  emotional  or  in- 
tellectual excitation ;  but  the  passion  for  watch- 
ing chances — the  habitual  suspensive  poise  of 
the  mind  in  actual  or  imaginary  play — nullifies 
the  susceptibility  to  other  excitation.  In  its  final, 
imperious  stage,  it  seems  the  unjoyous  dissipation 
of  demons,  seeking  diversion  on  the  burning  marl 
of  perdition. 

But  every  form  of  selfishness,  however  abstract 
and  unhuman,  requires  the  support  of  at  least 
one  meal  a  day ;  and  though  Lapidoth's  appetite 
for  food  and  drink  was  extremely  moderate,  he 
had  slipped  into  a  shabby,  unfriended  form  of  life 
in  which  the  appetite  could  not  be  satisfied  with- 
out some  ready  mone*y.  When,  in  a  brief  visit 
at  a  house  which  announced  "  Pyramids"  on  the 
window-blind,  he  had  first  doubled  and  trebled 
and  finally  lost  Mirah's  thirty  shillings,  he  went 
out  with  her  empty  purse  in  his  pocket,  already 
balancing  in  his  mind  whether  he  should  get  an- 
other immediate  stake  by  pawning  the  purse,  or 
whether  he  should  go  back  to  her  giving  himself 
a  good  countenance  by  restoring  the  purse,  and 
declaring  that  he  had  used  the  money  in  paying 
a  score  that  was  standing  against  him.  Besides, 
among  the  sensibilities  still  left  strong  in  Lapi- 
doth was  the  sensibility  to  his  own  claims,  and  he 
appeared  to  himself  to  have  a  claim  on  any  prop- 
erty his  children  might  possess,  which  was  stron- 
ger than  the  justice  of  his  son's  resentment.  Aft- 
er all,  to  take  up  his  lodging  with  his  children 
was  the  best  thing  he  could  do ;  and  the  more  he 
thought  of  meeting  Ezra,  the  less  he  winced  from 
it,  his  imagination  being  more  wrought  on  by  the 
chances  of  his  getting  something  into  his  pock- 
et with  safety  and  without  exertion  than  by  the 
threat  of  a  private  humiliation.  Luck  had  been 
against  him  lately;  he  expected  it  to  turn — and 
might  not  the  turn  begin  with  some  opening  of 
supplies  which  would  present  itself  through  his 
daughter's  affairs  and  the  good  friends  she  had 
spoken  of  ?  Lapidoth  counted  on  the  fascination 
of  his  cleverness — an  old  habit  of  mind  which 
early  experience  had  sanctioned;  and  it  is  not 
only  women  who  are  unaware  of  their  diminish- 
ed charm,  or  imagine  that  they  can  feign  not  to 
be  worn  out. 

The  result  of  Lapidoth's  rapid  balancing  was 
that  he  went  toward  the  little  square  in  Bromp- 
ton  with  the  hope  that,  by  walking  about  and 
watching,  he  might  catch  sight  of  Mirah  going 
out  or  returning,  in  which  case  his  entrance  into 
the  house  would  be  made  easier.  But  it  was  al- 
ready evening — the  evening  of  the  day  next  to 
that  on  which  he  had  first  seen  her ;  and  after  a 
little  waiting,  weariness  made  him  reflect  that  he 
might  ring,  and  if  she  were  not  at  home,  he  might 


ask  the  time  at  which  she  was  expected.  But 
on  coming  near  the  house  he  knew  that  she  was 
at  home :  he  heard  her  singing. 

Mirah,  seated  at  the  piano,  was  pouring  forth 
"  Herz,  mein  Jlerz,"  while  Ezra  was  listening  with 
his  eyes  shut,  when  Mrs.  Adam  opened  the  door, 
and  said,  in  some  embarrassment, 

"  A  gentleman  below  says  he  is  your  father, 
miss." 

"  I  will  go  down  to  him,"  said  Mirah,  starting 
up  immediately,  and  looking  toward  her  brother. 

"  No,  Mirah,  not  so,"  said  Ezra,  with  decision. 
"  Let  him  come  up,  Mrs.  Adam." 

Mirah  stood  with  her  hands  pinching  each  oth- 
er, and  feeling  sick  with  anxiety,  while  she  con- 
tinued  looking  at  Ezra,  who  had  also  risen,  and 
i  evidently  much  shaken.  But  there  was  an 
expression  in  his  face  which  she  had  never  seen 
before ;  his  brow  was  knit,  his  lips  seemed  hard- 
ened with  the  same  severity  that  gleamed  from 
his  eyes. 

When  Mrs.  Adam  opened  the  door  to  let  in  the 
father,  she  could  not  help  casting  a  look  at  the 
group,  and  after  glancing  from  the  younger  man 
to  the  elder,  said  to  herself,  as  she  closed  the  door, 

Father,  sure  enough."  The  likeness  was  that  of 
outline,  which  is  always  most  striking  at  the  first 
moment ;  the  expression  had  been  wrought  into 
the  strongest  contrast  by  such  hidden  or  incon- 
spicuous differences  as  can  make  the  genius  of 
a  Cromwell  within  the  outward  type  of  a  father 
who  was  no  more  than  a  respectable  parishioner. 

Lapidoth  had  put  on  a  melancholy  expression 
beforehand,  but  there  was  some  real  wincing  in 
his  frame  as  he  said, 

"  Well,  Ezra,  my  boy,  you  hardly  know  me  aft- 
er so  many  years." 

"I  know  you — too  well — father,"  said  Ezra, 
with  a  slow  biting  solemnity  which  made  the 
word  father  a  reproach. 

"  Ah,  you  are  not  pleased  with  me.  I  don't 
wonder  at  it.  Appearances  have  been  against  me. 
When  a  man  gets  into  straits,  he  can't  do  just 
as  he  would  by  himself  or  any  body  else.  I've 
suffered  enough,  I  know,"  said  Lapidoth,  quickly. 
In  speaking  he  always  recovered  some  glibness 
and  hardihood ;  and  now  turning  toward  Mirah, 
he  held  out  her  purse,  saying,  "  Here's  your  lit- 
tle purse,  my  dear.  I  thought  you'd  be  anxious 
about  it  because  of  that  bit  of  writing.  I've 
emptied  it,  you'll  see,  for  I  had  a  score  to  pay  for 
food  and  lodging.  I  knew  you  would  like  me  to 
clear  myself,  and  here  I  stand — without  a  single 
farthing  in  my  pocket — at  the  mercy  of  my  chil- 
dren. You  can  turn  me  out  if  you  like,  without 
getting  a  policeman.  Say  the  word,  Mirah ;  say, 
'  Father,  I've  had  enough  of  you ;  you  made  a 
pet  of  me,  and  spent  your  all  on  me,  when  I 
couldn't  have  done  without  you;  but  I  can  do 
better  without  you  now' — say  that,  and  I'm  gone 
out  like  a  spark.  I  sha'n't  spoil  your  pleasure 
again."  The  tears  were  in  his  voice  as  usual 
before  he  had  finished. 

"  You  know  I  could  never  say  it,  father,"  an- 
swered Mirah,  with  not  the  less  anguish  because 
she  felt  the  falsity  of  every  thing  in  his  speech 
except  the  implied  wish  to  remain  in  the  house. 

"  Mirah,  my  sister,  leave  us !"  said  Ezra,  in  a 
tone  of  authority. 

She  looked  at  her  brother  falteringly,  beseech- 
ingly— in  awe  of  his  decision,  yet  unable  to  go 
without  making  a  plea  for  this  father  who  was 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


like  something  that  had  grown  in  her  flesh  with 
pain,  but  that  she  could  never  have  cut  away 
without  worse  pain.  She  went  close  to  her 
brother,  and,  putting  her  hand  in  his,  sr.id,  in  a 
low  voice,  but  not  so  low  as  to  be  unheard  by 
Lapidoth,  "  Remember,  Ezra — you  said  my  moth- 
er would  not  have  shut  him  out." 

"  Trust  me  and  go,"  said  Ezra. 

She  left  the  room,  but  after  going  a  few  steps 
up  the  stairs,  sat  down  with  a  palpitating  heart. 
If,  because  of  any  thing  her  brother  said  to  him, 
he  went  away — 

Lapidoth  had  some  sense  of  what  was  being 
prepared  for  him  in  his  son's  mind,  but  he  was 
beginning  to  adjust  himself  to  the  situation  and 
find  a  point  of  view  that  would  give  him  a  cool 
superiority  to  any  attempt  at  humiliating  him. 
This  haggard  son,  speaking  as  from  a  sepulchre, 
had  the  incongruity  which  selfish  levity  learns  to 
see  in  suffering  and  death,  until  the  unrelenting 
pincers  of  disease  clutch  its  own  flesh.  What- 
ever preaching  he  might  deliver  must  be  taken 
for  a  matter  of  course,  as  a  man  finding  shelter 
from  hail  in  an  open  cathedral  might  take  a  lit- 
tle religious  howling  that  happened  to  be  goinj 
on  there. 

Lapidoth  was  not  born  with  this  sort  of  cal- 
lousness :  he  had  achieved  it. 

"  This  home  that  we  have  here,"  Ezra  began, 
"  is  maintained  partly  by  the  generosity  of  a  be- 
loved friend  who  supports  me,  and  partly  by  the 
labors  of  my  sister,  who  supports  herself.  While 
we  have  a  home,  we  will  not  shut  you  out  from 
it.  We  will  not  cast  you  out  to  the  mercy  of 
your  vices.  For  you  are  our  father,  and  though 
you  have  broken  your  bond,  we  acknowledge 
ours.  But  I  will  never  trust  you.  You  abscond- 
ed with  money,  leaving  your  debts  unpaid ;  you 
forsook  my  mother ;  you  robbed  her  of  her  little 
child  and  broke  her  heart ;  you  have  become  a 
gambler,  and  where  shame  and  conscience  were, 
there  sits  an  insatiable  desire ;  you  were  ready 
to  sell  my  sister — you  had  sold  her,  but  the  price 
was  denied  you.  The  man  who  has  done  these 
things  must  never  expect  to  be  trusted  any  more. 
We  will  share  our  food  with  you — you  shall  have 
a  bed  and  clothing.  We  will  do  this  duty  to  you, 
because  you  are  our  father.  But  you  will  never 
be  trusted.  You  are  an  evil  man :  you  made  the 
misery  of  our  mother.  That  such  a  man  is  our 
father  is  a  brand  on  our  flesh  which  will  not 
cease  smarting.  But  the  Eternal  has  laid  it  upon 
us ;  and  though  human  justice  were  to  flog  you 
for  crimes,  and  your  body  fell  helpless  before  the 
public  scorn,  we  would  still  say,  '  This  is  our  fa- 
ther ;  make  way,  that  we  may  carry  him  out  of 
your  sight.' " 

Lapidoth,  in  adjusting  himself  to  what  was 
coming,  had  not  been  able  to  foresee  the  exact 
intensity  of  the  lightning  or  the  exact  course  it 
would  take — that  it  would  not  fall  outside  his 
frame,  but  through  it.  He  could  not  foresee  what 
was  so  new  to  him  as  this  voice  from  the  soul  of 
his  son.  It  touched  that  spring  of  hysterical  ex- 
citability which  Mirah  used  to  witness  in  him 
when  he  sat  at  home  and  sobbed.  As  Ezra  end- 
ed, Lapidoth  threw  himself  into  a  chair  and  cried 
like  a  woman,  burying  his  face  against  the  table 
— and  yet,  strangely,  while  this  hysterical  cry- 
ing was  an  inevitable  reaction  in  him  under  the 
stress  of  his  son's  words,  it  was  also  a  conscious 
resource  in  a  difficulty;  just  as  in  early  life,  when 


he  was  a  bright-faced,  curly  young  man,  he  had 
been  used  to  avail  himself  of  this  subtly  poised 
physical  susceptibility  to  turn  the  edge  of  resent- 
ment or  disapprobation. 

Ezra  sat  down  again  and  said  nothing — ex- 
hausted by  the  shock  of  his  own  irrepressible  ut- 
terance, the  outburst  of  feelings  which  for  years 
he  had  borne  in  solitude  and  silence.  His  thin 
hands  trembled  on  the  arms  of  the  chair;  he 
would  hardly  have  found  voice  to  answer  a  ques- 
tion ;  he  felt  as  if  he  had  taken  a  step  toward 
beckoning  Death.  Meanwhile  Mirah's  quick  ex- 
pectant ear  detected  a  sound  which  her  heart 
recognized  :  she  could  not  stay  out  of  the  room 
any  longer.  But,  on  opening  the  door,  her  im- 
mediate alarm  was  for  Ezra,  and  it  was  to  his 
side  that  she  went,  taking  his  trembling  hand  in 
hers,  which  he  pressed  and  found  support  in; 
but  he  did  not  speak,  or  even  look  at  her.  The 
father  with  his  face  buried  was  conscious  that 
Mirah  had  entered,  and  presently  lifted  up  his 
head,  pressed  his  handkerchief  against  his  eyes, 
put  out  his  hand  toward  her,  and  said,  with  plaint- 
ive hoarseness,  "Good-by,  Mirah;  your  father 
will  not  trouble  you  again.  He  deserves  to  die 
like  a  dog  by  the  road-side,  and  he  will.  If  your 
mother  had  lived,  she  would  have  forgiven  me : 
thirty-four  years  ago  I  put  the  ring  on  her  finger 
under  the  Chuppa,  and  we  were  made  one.  She 
would  have  forgiven  me,  and  we  should  have 
spent  our  old  age  together.  But  I  haven't  de- 
served it.  Good-by." 

He  rose  from  the  chair  as  he  said  the  last 
"  good-by."  Mirah  had  put  her  hand  in  his  and 
held  him.  She  was  not  tearful  and  grieving,  but 
frightened  and  awe-struck,  as  she  cried  out, 

"  No,  father,  no !"  Then  turning  to  her  broth- 
er, "Ezra,  you  have  not  forbidden  him? — Stay, 
father,  and  leave  off  wrong  things. — Ezra,- 1  can 
not  bear  it.  How  can  I  say  to  my  father,  '  Go 
and  die!'" 

"  I  have  not  said  it,"  Ezra  answered,  with  great 
effort.  "  I  have  said,  stay  and  be  sheltered." 

"  Then  you  will  stay,  father — and  be  taken  care 
of  —  and  come  with  me,"  said  Mirah,  drawing 
him  toward  the  door. 

This  was  really  what  Lapidoth  wanted.  And 
for  the  moment  he  felt  a  sort  of  comfort  in  re- 
covering his  daughter's  dutiful  tendance,  that 
made  a  change  of  habits  seem  possible  to  him. 
She  led  him  down  to  the  parlor  below,  and  said, 

"  This  is  my  sitting-room  when  I  am  not  with 
Ezra,  and  there  is  a  bedroom  behind  which  shall 
be  yours.  You  will  stay  and  be  good,  father. 
Think  that  you  are  come  back  to  my  mother,  and 
that  she  has  forgiven  you  —  she  speaks  to  you 
through  me."  Mirah's  tones  were  imploring,  but 
she  could  not  give  one  of  her  former  caresses.' 

Lapidoth  quickly  recovered  his  composure,  be- 
gan to  speak  to  Mirah  of  the  improvement  in 
her  voice,  and  other  easy  subjects,  and  when  Mrs. 
Adam  came  to  lay  out  his  supper,  entered  into 
converse  with  her  in  order  to  show  her  that  he 
was  not  a  common  person,  though  his  clothes 
were  just  now  against  him. 

But  in  his  usual  wakefulness  at  night  he  fell 
to  wondering  what  money  Mirah  had  by  her,  and 
went  back  over  old  Continental  hours  at  rotdette, 
reproducing  the  method  of  his  play,  and  the 
chances  that  had  frustrated  it  He  had  had  his 
reasons  for  coming  to  England,  but  for  most 
things  it  was  a  cursed  country.  .; 


264 


DANIEL   DEROXDA. 


These  were  the  stronger  visions  of  the  night 
with  Lapidoth,  and  not  the  worn  frame  of  his  ire- 
ful son  uttering  a  terrible  judgment.  Ezra  did 
pass  across  the  gaming  table,  and  his  words  were 
audible;  but  he  passed  like  an  insubstantial 
ghost,  and  his  words  had  the  heart  eaten  out  of 
them  by  numbers  and  movements  that  seemed 
to  make  the  very  tissue  of  Lapidoth's  conscious- 


CHAPTER  LXVII. 

The  godhead  in  us  wrings  oar  nobler  deeds 
From  our  reluctant  selves. 

IT  was  an  unpleasant  surprise  to  Deronda 
when  he  returned  from  the  Abbey  to  find  the 
undesirable  father  installed  in  the  lodgings  at 
Brompton.  Mirah  had  felt  it  necessary  to  speak 
of  Deronda  to  her  father,  and  even  to  make  him 
as  fully  aware  as  she  could  of  the  way  in  which 
the  friendship  with  Ezra  had  begun,  and  of  the 
sympathy  which  had  cemented  it.  She  passed 
more  lightly  over  what  Deronda  had  done  for 
her,  omitting  altogether  the  rescue  from  drown- 
ing, and  speaking  of  the  shelter  she  had  found 
in  Mrs.  Meyrick's  family  so  as  to  leave  her  fa- 
ther to  suppose  that  it  was  through  these  friends 
Deronda  had  become  acquainted  with  her.  She 
could  not  persuade  herself  to  more  completeness 
in  her  narrative :  she  could  not  let  the  breath  of 
her  father's  soul  pass  over  her  relation  to  Deron- 
da. And  Lapidoth,  for  reasons,  was  not  eager 
in  his  questioning  about  the  circumstances  of  her 
flight  and  arrival  in  England.  But  he  was  much 
interested  in  the  fact  of  his  children  having  a 
beneficent  friend  apparently  high  in  the  world. 

It  was  the  brother  who  told  Deronda  of  this 
new  condition  added  to  their  life.  "I  am  be- 
come calm  in  beholding  him  now,"  Ezra  ended, 
"  and  I  try  to  think  it  possible  that  my  sister's 
tenderness,  and  the  daily  tasting  a  life  of  peace, 
may  win  him  to  remain  aloof  from  temptation. 
I  have  enjoined  her,  and  she  has  promised,  to 
trust  him  with  no  money.  I  have  convinced  her 
that  he  will  buy  with  it  his  own  destruction." 

Deronda  first  came  on  the  third  day  from  Lap- 
idoth's arrival.  The  new  clothes  for  which  he 
had  been  measured  were  not  yet  ready,  and 
wishing  to  make  a  favorable  impression,  he  did 
not  choose  to  present  himself  in  the  old  ones. 
He  watched  for  Deronda's  departure,  and,  getting 
a  view  of  him  from  the  window,  was  rather  sur- 
prised at  his  youthfulness,  which  Mirah  had  not 
mentioned,  and  which  he  had  somehow  thought 
out  of  the  question  in  a  personage  who  had  tak- 
en up  a  grave  friendship  and  hoary  studies  with 
the  sepulchral  Ezra.  Lapidoth  began  to  imag- 
ine that  Deronda's  real  or  chief  motive  must  be 
that  he  was  in  love  with  Mirah.  And  so  much 
the  better ;  for  a  tie  to  Mirah  had  more  promise 
of  indulgence  for  her  father  than  the  tie  to  Ezra ; 
and  Lapidoth  was  not  without  the  hope  of  rec- 
ommending himself  to  Deronda,  and  of  softening 
any  hard  prepossessions.  He  was  behaving 
with  much  amiability,  and  trying  in  all  ways  at 
his  command  to  get  himself  into  easy  domesti- 
cation with  his  children — entering  into  Mirah'a 
music,  showing  himself  docile  about  smoking, 
which  Mrs.  Adam  could  not  tolerate  in  her  par- 
lor, and  walking  out  in  the  square  with  his  Ger- 
man pipe  and  the  tobacco  with  which  Mirah  sup- 


plied him.  He  was  too  acute  to  venture  any  pres- 
ent remonstrance  against  the  refusal  of  money, 
which  Mirah  told  him  that  she  must  persist  in 
as  a  solemn  duty  promised  to  her  brother.  He 
was  comfortable  enough  to  wait. 

The  next  time  Deronda  came,  Lapidoth,  equipped 
in  his  new  clothes  and  satisfied  with  his  own  ap- 
pearance, was  in  the  room  with  Ezra,  who  was 
teaching  himself,  as  part  of  his  severe  duty,  to 
tolerate  his  father's  presence  whenever  it  was 
imposed.  Deronda  was  cold  and  distant,  the  first 
sight  of  this  man,  who  had  blighted  the  lives  of 
his  wife  and  children,  creating  in  him  a  repulsion 
that  was  even  a  physical  discomfort.  But  Lap- 
idoth did  not  let  himself  be  discouraged,  asked 
leave  to  stay  and  hear  the  reading  of  papers  from 
the  old  chest,  and  actually  made  himself  useful 
in  helping  to  decipher  some  difficult  German 
manuscript.  This  led  him  to  suggest  that  it 
might  be  desirable  to  make  a  transcription  of 
the  manuscript,  and  he  offered  his  services  for 
this  purpose,  and  also  to  make  copies  of  any  pa- 
pers in  Roman  characters.  Though  Ezra's  young 
eyes,  he  observed,  were  getting  weak,  his  own 
were  still  strong.  Deronda  accepted  the  offer, 
thinking  that  Lapidoth  showed  a  sign  of  grace 
in  the  willingness  to  be  employed  usefully ;  and 
he  saw  a  gratified  expression  in  Ezra's  face,  who, 
however,  presently  said,  "  Let  all  the  writing  be 
done  here ;  for  I  can  not  trust  the  papers  out  of 
my  sight,  lest  there  be  an  accident  by  burning  or 
otherwise."  Poor  Ezra  felt  very  much  as  if  he 
had  a  convict  on  leave  under  his  charge.  Unless 
he  saw  his  father  working,  it  was  not  possible  to 
believe  that  he  would  work  in  good  faith.  But 
by  this  arrangement  he  fastened  on  himself  the 
burden  of  his  father's  presence,  which  was  made 
painful  not  only  through  his  deepest,  longest  as- 
sociations, but  also  through  Lapidoth's  restless- 
ness of  temperament,  which  showed  itself  the 
more  as  he  became  familiarized  with  his  situa- 
tion, and  lost  any  awe  he  had  felt  of  his  son. 
The  fact  was,  he  was  putting  a  strong  constraint 
on  himself  in  confining  his  attention  for  the  sake 
of  winning  Deronda's  favor ;  and,  like  a  man  in 
an  uncomfortable  garment,  he  gave  himself  relief 
at  every  opportunity,  going  out  to  smoke,  or  mov- 
ing about  and  talking,  or  throwing  himself  back 
in  his  chair  and  remaining  silent,  but  incessantly 
carrying  on  a  dumb  language  of  facial  movement 
or  gesticulation ;  and  if  Mirah  were  in  the  room, 
he  would  fall  into  his  old  habit  of  talk  with  her, 
gossiping  about  their  former  doings  and  compan- 
ions, or  repeating  quirks,  and  stories,  and  plots  of 
the  plays  he  used  to  adapt,  in  the  belief  that  he 
could  at  will  command  the  vivacity  of  his  earlier 
time.  All  this  was  a  mortal  infliction  to  Ezra ; 
and  when  Mirah  was  at  home  she  tried  to  relieve 
him  by  getting  her  father  down  into  the  parlor 
and  keeping  watch  over  him  there.  What  duty 
is  made  of  a  single  difficult  resolve  ?  The  diffi- 
culty lies  in  the  daily  unflinching  support  of  con- 
sequences that  mar  the  blessed  return  of  morn- 
ing with  the  prospect  of  irritation  to  be  suppressed 
or  shame  to  be  endured.  And  such  consequences 
were  being  borne  by  these,  as  by  many  other,  he- 
roic children  of  an  unworthy  father — with  the 
prospect,  at  least  to  Mirah,  of  their  stretching  on- 
ward through  the  solid  part  of  life. 

Meanwhile  Lapidoth's  presence  had  raised  a 
new  impalpable  partition  between  Deronda  and 
Mirah — each  of  them  dreading  the  soiling  infer- 


BOOK  Yin.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


ences  of  his  mind,  each  of  them  interpreting  mis- 
takenly the  increased  reserve  and  diffidence  of 
the  other.  But  it  was  not  very  long  before  some 
light  came  to  Deronda. 

As  soon  as  he  could,  after  returning  from  his 
brief  visit  to  the  Abbey,  he  had  called  at  Hans 
Meyrick's  rooms,  feeling  it,  on  more  grounds  than 
one,  a  due  of  friendship  that  Hans  should  be  at 
once  acquainted  with  the  reasons  of  his  late  jour- 
ney, and  the  changes  of  intention  it  had  brought 
about.  Hans  was  not  there ;  he  was  said  to  be 
in  the  country  for  a  few  days ;  and  Deronda,  aft- 
er leaving  a  note,  waited  a  week,  rather  expecting 
a  note  in  return.  But  receiving  no  word,  and 
fearing  some  freak  of  feeling  in  the  incalculably 
susceptible  Hans,  whose  proposed  sojourn  at  the 
Abbey  he  knew  had  been  deferred,  he  at  length 
made  a  second  call,  and  was  admitted  into  the 
painting  -  room,  where  he  found  his  friend  in  a 
light  coat,  without  a  waistcoat,  his  long  hair  still 
wet  from  a  bath,  but  with  a  face  looking  worn 
and  wizened  —  any  thing  but  country-like.  He 
had  taken  up  his  palette  and  brushes,  and  stood 
before  his  easel  when  Deronda  entered ;  but  the 
equipment  and  attitude  seemed  to  have  been  got 
up  on  short  notice. 

As  they  shook  hands,  Deronda  said,  "  You  don't 
look  much  as  if  you  had  been  in  the  country,  old 
fellow.  Is  it  Cambridge  you  have  been  to  ?" 

"  No,"  said  Hans,  curtly,  throwing  down  his 
palette  with  the  air  of  one  who  has  begun  to 
feign  by  mistake ;  then,  pushing  forward  a  chair 
for  Deronda,  he  threw  himself  into  another,  and 
leaned  backward  with  his  hands  behind  his  head, 
while  he  went  on,  "  I've  been  to  I-don't-know- 
where — No-man's-land — and  a  mortally  unpleas- 
ant country  it  is." 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  have  been  drink- 
ing, Hans,"  said  Deronda,  who  had  seated  him- 
self opposite,  in  anxious  survey. 

"  Nothing  so  good.  I've  been  smoking  opium. 
I  always  meant  to  do  it  some  time  or  other,  to 
try  how  much  bliss  could  be  got  by  it ;  and  hav- 
ing found  myself  just  now  rather  out  of  other 
bliss,  I  thought  it  judicious  to  seize  the  opportu- 
nity. But  I  pledge  you  my  word  I  shall  never 
tap  a  cask  of  that  bliss  again.  It  disagrees  with 
my  constitution." 

"What  has  been  the  matter?  You  were  in 
good  spirits  enough  when  you  wrote  to  me." 

"  Oh,  nothing  in  particular.  The  world  began 
to  look  seedy — a  sort  of  cabbage  garden  with  all 
the  cabbages  cut.  A  malady  of  genius,  you  may 
be  sure,"  said  Hans,  creasing  his  face  into  a  smile ; 
"  and,  in  fact,  I  was  tired  of  being  virtuous  without 
reward,  especially  in  this  hot  London  weather." 

"Nothing  else?  No  real  vexation?"  said  De- 
ronda. 

Hans  shook  his  head. 

"  I  came  to  tell  you  of  my  own  affairs,  but  I  can't 
do  it  with  a  good  grace  if  you  are  to  hide  yours." 

"  Haven't  an  affair  in  the  world,"  said  Hans, 
in  a  flighty  way,  "  except  a  quarrel  with  a  bric-a- 
brac  man.  Besides,  as  it  is  the  first  time  in  our 
lives  that  you  ever  spoke  to  me  about  your  own 
affairs,  you  are  only  beginning  to  pay  a  pretty 
long  debt." 

Deronda  felt  convinced  that  Hans  was  behav- 
ing artificially,  but  he  trusted  to  a  return  of  the 
old  frankness  by-and-by  if  he  gave  his  own  con- 
fidence. 

"  You  laughed  at  the  mystery  of  my  journey 


to  Italy,  Hans,"  he  began.  "  It  was  for  an  ob- 
ject that  touched  my  happiness  at  the  very  roots. 
I  had  never  known  any  thing  about  my  parents, 
and  I  really  went  to  Genoa  to  meet  my  mother. 
My  father  has  been  long  dead — died  when  I  was 
an  infant.  My  mother  was  the  daughter  of  an 
eminent  Jew ;  my  father  was  her  cousin.  Many 
things  had  caused  me  to  think  of  this  origin  as 
almost  a  probability  before  I  set  out.  I  was  so 
far  prepared  for  the  result  that  I  was  glad  of  it 
— glad  to  find  myself  a  Jew." 

"  You  must  not  expect  me  to  look  surprised, 
Deronda,"  said  Hans,  who  had  changed  his  atti- 
tude, laying  one  leg  across  the  other  and  examin- 
ing the  heel  of  his  slipper. 

"You  knew  it?" 

"My  mother  told  me.  She  went  to  the  house 
the  morning  after  you  had  been  there — brother 
and  sister  both  told  her.  You  may  imagine  we 
can't  rejoice  as  they  do.  But  whatever  you  are 
glad  of,  I  shall  come  to  be  glad  of  in  the  end — 
when  exactly  the  end  may  be  I  can't  predict," 
said  Hans,  speaking  in  a  low  tone,  which  was  as 
unusual  with  him  as  it  was  to  be  out  of  humor 
with  his  lot,  and  yet  bent  on  making  no  fuss 
about  it. 

"  I  quite  understand  that  you  can't  share  my 
feeling,"  said  Deronda ;  "  but  I  could  not  let  si- 
lence lie  between  us  on  what  casts  quite  a  new 
light  over  my  future.  I  have  taken  up  some  of 
Mordecai's  ideas,  and  I  mean  to  try  and  carry 
them  out,  so  far  as  one  man's  efforts  can  go.  I 
dare  say  I  shall  by-and-by  travel  to  the  East,  and 
be  away  for  some  years." 

Hans  said  nothing,  but  rose,  seized  his  palette, 
and  began  to  work  his  brush  on  it,  standing  be- 
fore his  picture  with  his  back  to  Deronda,  who 
also  felt  himself  at  a  break  in  his  path,  embar- 
rassed by  Hans's  embarrassment. 

Presently  Hans  said,  again  speaking  low,  and 
without  turning,  "  Excuse  the  question,  but  does 
Mrs.  Grandcourt  know  of  all  this  ?" 

"  No ;  and  I  must  beg  of  you,  Hans,"  said  De- 
ronda, rather  angrily,  "  to  cease  joking  on  that 
subject.  Any  notions  you  have  are  wide  of  the 
truth — are  the  very  reverse  of  the  truth." 

"  I  am  no  more  inclined  to  joke  than  I  shall  be 
at  my  own  funeral,"  said  Hans.  "  But  I  am  not 
at  all  sure  that  you  are  aware  what  are  my  no- 
tions on  that  subject." 

"Perhaps  not,"  said  Deronda.  "But  let  me 
say,  once  for  all,  that  in  relation  to  Mrs.  Grand- 
court,  I  never  have  had,  and  never  shall  have,  the 
position  of  a  lover.  If  you  have  ever  seriously 
put  that  interpretation  on  any  thing  you  have 
observed,  you  are  supremely  mistaken." 

There  was  silence  a  little  while,  and  to  each 
the  silence  was  like  an  irritating  air,  exaggera- 
ting discomfort. 

"  Perhaps  I  have  been  mistaken  in  another  in- 
terpretation also,"  said  Hans,  presently. 

"What  is  that?" 

"  That  you  had  no  wish  to  hold  the  position  of 
a  lover  toward  another  woman,  who  is  neither 
wife  nor  widow." 

"  I  can't  pretend  not  to  understand  you,  Mey- 
rick.  It  is  painful  that  our  wishes  should  clash. 
But  I  hope  you  will  tell  me  if  you  have  any 
ground  for  supposing  that  you  would  succeed." 

"That  seems  rather  a  superfluous  inquiry  on 
your  part,  Deronda,"  said  Hans,  with  some  irrita- 
tion. 


DANIEL   DERONDA. 


"  Why  superfluous  ?" 

"Because  you  are  perfectly  convinced  on  the 
subject — and  probably  you  have  had  the  very 
best  evidence  to  convince  you." 

"I  will  be  more  frank  with  you  than  you  are 
with  me,"  said  Deronda,  still  heated  by  Hans's 
show  of  temper,  and  yet  sorry  for  him.  "  I  have 
never  had  the  slightest  evidence  that  I  should 
succeed  myself.  In  fact,  I  have  very  little  hope." 

Hans  looked  round  hastily  at  his  friend,  but 
immediately  turned  to  his  picture  again. 

"And  in  our  present  situation,"  said  Deronda, 
hurt  by  the  idea  that  Hans  suspected  him  of  in- 
sincerity, and  giving  an  offended  emphasis  to  his 
words,  "  I  don't  see  how  I  can  deliberately  make 
known  my  feeling  to  her.  If  she  could  not  re- 
turn it,  I  should  have  imbittered  her  best  com- 
fort, for  neither  she  nor  I  can  be  parted  from  her 
brother,  and  we  should  have  to  meet  continually. 
If  I  were  to  cause  her  that  sort  of  pain  by  an 
unwilling  betrayal  of  my  feeling,  I  should  be  no 
better  than  a  mischievous  animal." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  have  ever  betrayed  my 
feeling  to  her,"  said  Hans,  as  if  he  were  vindica- 
ting himself. 

"  You  mean  that  we  are  on  a  level ;  then  you 
have  no  reason  to  envy  me." 

"  Oh,  not  the  slightest,"  said  Hans,  with  bitter 
irony.  "  You  have  measured  my  conceit,  and 
know  that  it  outtops  all  your  advantages." 

"  I  am  a  nuisance  to  you,  Meyrick.  I  am  sor- 
ry, but  I  can't  help  it,"  said  Deronda,  rising. 
"  After  what  passed  between  us  before,  I  wished 
to  have  this  explanation ;  and  I  don't  see  that 
any  pretensions  of  mine  have  made  a  real  differ- 
ence to  you.  They  are  not  likely  to  make  any 
pleasant  difference  to  myself  under  present  cir- 
cumstances. Now  the  father  is  there — did  you 
know  that  the  father  is  there  ?" 

"  Yes.  If  he  were  not  a  Jew,  I  would  permit 
myself  to  damn  him — with  faint  praise,  I  mean," 
said  Hans,  but  with  no  smile. 

"  She  and  I  meet  under  greater  constraint  than 
ever.  Things  might  go  on  in  this  way  for  two 
years  without  my  getting  any  insight  into  her 
feeling  toward  me.  That  is  the  whole  state  of 
affairs,  Hans.  Neither  you  nor  I  have  injured 
the  other,  that  I  can  see.  We  must  put  up  with 
this  sort  of  rivalry  in  a  hope  that  is  likely  enough 
to  come  to  nothing.  Our  friendship  can  bear 
that  strain,  surely." 

"  No,  it  can't,"  said  Hans,  impetuously,  throw- 
ing down  his  tools,  thrusting  his  hands  into  his 
coat  pockets,  and  turning  round  to  face  Deronda, 
who  drew  back  a  little  and  looked  at  him  with 
amazement.  Hans  went  on  in  the  same  tone : 

"Our  friendship — my  friendship— can't  bear 
the  strain  of  behaving  to  you  like  an  ungrateful 
dastard,  and  grudging  you  your  happiness.  For 
you  are  the  happiest  dog  in  the  world.  If  Mirah 
loves  any  body  better  than  her  brother,  you  are 
the  man." 

Hans  turned  on  his  heel  and  threw  himself  into 
his  chair,  looking  up  at  Deronda  with  an  expres- 
sion the  reverse  of  tender.  Something  like  a 
shock  passed  through  Deronda,  and,  after  an  in- 
stant, he  said, 

"  It  is  a  good-natured  fiction  of  yours,  Hans." 

"  I  am  not  in  a  good-natured  mood.  I  assure 
you  I  found  the  fact  disagreeable  when  it  was 
thrust  on  me — all  the  more,  or  perhaps  all  the 
less,  because  I  believed  then  that  your  heart  was 


pledged  to  the  duchess.  But  now,  confound  you ! 
you  turn  out  to  be  in  love  in  the  right  place — a 
Jew — and  every  thing  eligible." 

"  Tell  me  what  convinced  you — there's  a  good 
fellow,"  said  Deronda,  distrusting  a  delight  that 
he  was  unused  to. 

"  Don't  ask.  Little  mother  was  witness.  The 
upshot  is,  that  Mirah  is  jealous  of  the  duchess, 
and  the  sooner  you  relieve  her  mind,  the  better. 
There !  I've  cleared  off  a  score  or  two,  and  may  be 
allowed  to  swear  at  you  for  getting  what  you  de- 

rve — which  is  just  the  very  best  luck  I  know  of." 

"  God  bless  you,  Hans !"  said  Deronda,  putting 
out  his  hand,  which  the  other  took  and  wrung  in 
silence. 


CHAPTER  LXVIII. 

"AH  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 

Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame, 
All  are  but  ministers  of  Love, 
And  feed  his  sacred  flame." 

— COLERIDQK. 

DERONDA'S  eagerness  to  confess  his  love  could 
hardly  have  had  a  stronger  stimulus  than  Hans 
had  given  it  in  his  assurance  that  Mirah  needed 
relief  from  jealousy.  He  went  on  his  next  visit 
to  Ezra  with  the  determination  to  be  resolute  in 
using — nay,  in  requesting — an  opportunity  of  pri- 
vate conversation  with  her.  If  she  accepted  his 
love,  he  felt  courageous  about  all  other  conse- 
quences, and  as  her  betrothed  husband  he  would 
gain  a  protective  authority  which  might  be  a  de- 
sirable defense  for  her  in  future  difficulties  with 
her  father.  Deronda  had  not  observed  any  signs 
of  growing  restlessness  in  Lapidoth,  or  of  dimin- 
ished desire  to  recommend  himself ;  but  he  had 
forebodings  of  some  future  struggle,  some  morti- 
fication, or  some  intolerable  increase  of  domestic 
disquietude  in  which  he  might  save  Ezra  and 
Mirah  from  being  helpless  victims. 

His  forebodings  would  have  been  strengthened 
if  he  had  known  what  was  going  on  in  the  fa- 
ther's mind.  That  amount  of  restlessness,  that 
desultoriness  of  attention,  which  made  a  small 
torture  to  Ezra,  was  to  Lapidoth  an  irksome  sub- 
mission to  restraint,  only  made  bearable  by  his 
thinking  of  it  as  a  means  of  by-and-by  securing 
a  well-conditioned  freedom.  He  began  with  the 
intention  of  awaiting  some  really  good  chance, 
such  as  an  opening  for  getting  a  considerable 
sum  from  Deronda;  but  all  the  while  he  was 
looking  about  curiously,  and  trying  to  discover 
where  Mirah  deposited  her  money  and  her  keys. 
The  imperious  gambling  desire  within  him,  which 
carried  on  its  activity  through  every  other  occu- 
pation, and  made  a  continuous  web  of  imagina- 
tion that  held  all  else  in  its  meshes,  would  hard- 
ly have  been  under  the  control  of  a  protracted 
purpose,  if  he  had  been  able  to  lay  his  hand  on 
any  sum  worth  capturing.  But  Mirah,  with  her 
practical  clear-sightedness,  guarded  against  any 
frustration  of  the  promise  she  had  given  Ezra, 
by  confiding  all  money,  except  what  she  was  im- 
mediately in  want  of,  to  Mrs.  Meyrick's  care,  and 
Lapidoth  felt  himself  under  an  irritating  com- 
pleteness of  supply  in  kind  as  in  a  lunatic  asy- 
lum where  every  thing  was  made  safe  against 
him.  To  have  opened  a  desk  or  drawer  of  Mi- 
rah's,  and  pocketed  any  bank-notes  found  there, 
would  have  been  to  his  mind  a  sort  of  domestic 
appropriation  which  had  no  disgrace  in  it;  the 


BOOK  VIII— FRUIT  AND   SEED. 


267 


degrees  of  liberty  a  man  allows  himself  with  oth- 
er people's  property  being  often  delicately  drawn, 
even  beyond  the  boundary  where  the  law  begins 
to  lay  its  hold — which  is  the  reason  why  spoons 
are  a  safer  investment  than  mining  shares.  Lap- 
idoth  really  felt  himself  injuriously  treated  by 
his  daughter,  and  thought  that  he  ought  to  have 
had  what  he  wanted  of  her  other  earnings  as  he 
had  of  her  apple-tart.  But  he  remained  submis- 
sive ;  indeed,  the  indiscretion  that  most  tempted 
him  was  not  any  insistence  with  Mirah,  but  some 
kind  of  appeal  to  Derouda.  Clever  persons  who 
have  nothing  else  to  sell  can  often  put  a  good 
price  on  their  absence,  and  Lapidoth's  difficult 
search  for  devices  forced  upon  him  the  idea  that 
his  family  would  find  themselves  happier  without 
him,  and  that  Deronda  would  be  willing  to  ad- 
vance a  considerable  sum  for  the  sake  of  getting 
rid  of  him.  But,  in  spite  of  well-practiced  hardi- 
hood, Lapidoth  was  still  in  some  awe  of  Ezra's 
imposing  friend,  and  deferred  his  purpose  indefi- 
nitely. 

On  this  day,  when  Deronda  had  come  full  of  a 
gladdened  consciousness,  which  inevitably  showed 
itself  hi  his  air  and  speech,  Lapidoth  was  at  a 
crisis  of  discontent  and  longing  that  made  his 
mind  busy  with  schemes  of  freedom,  and  Deron- 
da's  new  amenity  encouraged  them.  This  pre- 
occupation was  at  last  so  strong  as  to  interfere 
with  his  usual  show  of  interest  in  what  went  for- 
ward, and  his  persistence  in  sitting  by  even  when 
there  was  reading  which  he  could  not  follow. 
After  sitting  a  little  while,  he  went  out  to  smoke 
and  walk  in  the  square,  and  the  two  friends  were 
all  the  easier.  Mirah  was  not  at  home,  but  she 
was  sure  to  be  in  again  before  Deronda  left,  and 
his  eyes  glowed  with  a  secret  anticipation :  he 
thought  that  when  he  saw  her  again  he  should 
see  some  sweetness  of  recognition  for  himself  to 
which  his  eyes  had  been  sealed  before.  There 
was  an  additional  playful  affectionateness  hi  his 
manner  toward  Ezra. 

"  This  little  room  is  too  close  for  you,  Ezra," 
he  said,  breaking  off  his  reading.  "  The  week's 
heat  we  sometimes  get  here  is  worse  than  the 
heat  in  Genoa,  where  one  sits  in  the  shaded  cool- 
ness of  large  rooms.  You  must  have  a  better 
home  now.  I  shall  do  as  I  like  with  you,  being 
the  stronger  half."  He  smiled  toward  Ezra,  who 
said, 

"  I  am  straitened  for  nothing  except  breath. 
But  you,  who  might  be  in  a  spacious  palace,  with 
the  wide  green  country  around  you,  find  this  a 
narrow  prison.  Nevertheless,  I  can  not  say, 
'Go.'" 

"  Oh,  the  country  would  be  a  banishment  while 
you  are  here,"  said  Deronda,  rising  and  walking 
round  the  double  room,  which  yet  offered  no  long 
promenade,  while  he  made  a  great  fan  of  his 
handkerchief.  "This  is  the  happiest  room  in 
the  world  to  me.  Besides,  I  will  imagine  myself 
in  the  East,  since  I  am  getting  ready  to  go  there 
some  day.  Only  I  will  not  wear  a  cravat  and  a 
heavy  ring  there,"  he  ended  emphatically,  paus- 
ing to  take  off  those  superfluities  and  deposit 
them  on  a  small  table  behind  Ezra,  who  had  the 
table  in  front  of  him  covered  with  books  and 
papers. 

"  I  have  been  wearing  my  memorable  ring  ever 
since  I  came  home,"  he  went  on,  as  he  reseated 
himself.  "  But  I  am  such  a  Sybarite  that  I  con- 
stantly put  it  off  as  a  burden  when  I  am  doing 


any  thing.  I  understand  why  the  Romans  had 
summer  rings — if  they  had  them.  Now,  then,  I 
shall  get  on  better." 

They  were  soon  absorbed  in  their  work  again. 
Deronda  was  reading  a  piece  of  rabbinical  He- 
brew under  Ezra's  correction  and  comment,  and 
they  took  little  notice  when  Lapidoth  re-entered 
and  seated  himself  somewhat  in  the  background. 

His  rambling  eyes  quickly  alighted  on  the 
ring  that  sparkled  on  the  bit  of  dark  mahogany. 
During  his  walk  his  mind  had  been  occupied 
with  the  fiction  of  an  advantageous  opening  for 
him  abroad,  only  requiring  a  sum  of  ready  mon- 
ey, which,  on  being  communicated  to  Deronda  in 
private,  might  immediately  draw  from  him  a  ques- 
tion as  to  the  amount  of  the  required  sum ;  and  it 
was  this  part  of  his  forecast  that  Lapidoth  found 
the  most  debatable,  there  being  a  danger  in  ask- 
ing too  much,  and  a  prospective  regret  in  asking 
too  little.  His  own  desire  gave  him  no  limit,  and 
he  was  quite  without  guidance  as  to  the  limit 
of  Deronda's  willingness.  But  now,  in  the  midst 
of  these  airy  conditions  preparatory  to  a  receipt 
which  remained  indefinite,  this  ring,  which  on 
Deronda's  finger  had  become  familiar  to  Lapi- 
doth's envy,  suddenly  shone  detached,  and  within 
easy  grasp.  Its  value  was  certainly  below  the 
smallest  of  the  imaginary  sums  that  his  purpose 
fluctuated  between ;  but  then  it  was  before  him 
as  a  solid  fact,  and  his  desire  at  once  leaped  into 
the  thought  (not  yet  an  intention)  that  if  he  were 
quietly  to  pocket  that  ring  and  walk  away,  he 
would  have  the  means  of  comfortable  escape  from 
present  restraint,  without  trouble,  and  also  with- 
out danger ;  for  any  property  of  Deronda's  (avail- 
able without  his  formal  consent)  was  all  one  with 
his  children's  property,  since  their  father  would 
never  be  prosecuted  for  taking  it.  The  details 
of  this  thinking  followed  each  other  so  quickly 
that  they  seemed  to  rise  before  him  as  one  pic- 
ture. Lapidoth  had  never  committed  larceny; 
but  larceny  is  a  form  of  appropriation  for  which 
people  are  punished  by  law ;  and  to  take  this 
ring  from  a  virtual  relation,  who  would  have  been 
willing  to  make  a  much  heavier  gift,  would  not 
come  under  the  head  of  larceny.  Still,  the  heav- 
ier gift  was  to  be  preferred,  if  Lapidoth  could 
only  make  haste  enough  in  asking  for  it,  and  the 
imaginary  action  of  taking  the  ring,  which  kept 
repeating  itself  like  an  inward  tune,  sank  into  a 
rejected  idea.  He  satisfied  his  urgent  longing 
by  resolving  to  go  below  and  watch  for  the  mo- 
ment of  Deronda's  departure,  when  he  would  ask 
leave  to  join  him  in  his  walk,  and  boldly  carry 
out  his  meditated  plan.  He  rose  and  stood  look- 
ing out  of  the  window,  but  all  the  while  he  saw 
what  lay  behind  him — the  brief  passage  he  would 
have  to  make  to  the  door  close  by  the  table  where 
the  ring  was.  However,  he  was  resolved  to  go 
down ;  but — by  no  distinct  change  of  resolution, 
rather  by  a  dominance  of  desire,  like  the  thirst 
of  the  drunkard — it  so  happened  that  in  passing 
the  table  his  fingers  fell  noiselessly  on  the  ring, 
and  he  found  himself  in  the  passage  with  the 
ring  in  his  hand.  It  followed  that  he  put  on  his 
hat  and  quitted  the  house.  The  possibility  of 
again  throwing  himself  on  his  children  receded 
into  the  indefinite  distance,  and  before  he  was 
out  of  the  square  his  sense  of  haste  had  concen- 
trated itself  on  selling  the  ring  and  getting  on 
shipboard. 

Deronda  and  Ezra  were  just  aware  of  his  exit; 


268 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


that  was  all.  But,  by-and-by,  Mirah  came  in  and 
made  a  real  interruption.  She  had  not  taken  off 
her  hat ;  and  when  Deronda  rose  and  advanced  to 
shake  hands  with  her,  she  said,  in  a  confusion  at 
once  unaccountable  and  troublesome  to  herself, 

"  I  only  came  in  to  see  that  Ezra  had  his  new 
draught.  I  must  go  directly  to  Mrs.  Meyrick's 
to  fetch  something." 

"  Pray  allow  me  to  walk  with  you,"  said  De- 
ronda, urgently.  "  I  must  not  tire  Ezra  any  fur- 
ther ;  besides,  my  brains  are  melting.  I  want  to 
go  to  Mrs.  Meyrick's :  may  I  go  with  you  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  Mirah,  blushing  still  more,  with 
the  vague  sense  of  something  new  in  Deronda, 
and  turning  away  to  pour  out  Ezra's  draught; 
Ezra  meanwhile  throwing  back  his  head,  with  his 
eyes  shut,  unable  to  get  his  mind  away  from  the 
ideas  that  had  been  filling  it  while  the  reading 
was  going  on.  Deronda  for  a  moment  stood 
thinking  of  nothing  but  the  walk,  till  Mirah  turn- 
ed round  again  and  brought  the  draught,  when 
he  suddenly  remembered  that  he  had  laid  aside 
his  cravat,  and  saying,  "Pray  excuse  my  disha- 
bille ;  I  did  not  mean  you  to  see  it,"  he  went  to 
the  little  table,  took  up  his  cravat,  and  exclaim- 
ed, with  a  violent  impulse  of  surprise, "  Good  heav- 
ens! where  is  my  ring  gone?"  beginning  to 
search  about  on  the  floor. 

Ezra  looked  round  the  corner  of  his  chair. 
Mirah,  quick  as  thought,  went  to  the  spot  where 
Deronda  was  seeking,  and  said,  "Did  you  lay  it 
down  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Deronda,  etill  unvisited  by  any 
other  explanation  than  that  the  ring  had  fallen 
and  was  lurking  in  shadow,  indiscernible  on  the 
variegated  carpet.  He  was  moving  the  bits  of 
furniture  near,  and  searching  in  all  possible  and 
impossible  places  with  hand  and  eyes. 

But  another  explanation  had  visited  Mirah  and 
taken  the  color  from  her  cheek.  She  went  to  Ez- 
ra's ear  and  whispered,  "  Was  my  father  here  ?" 
He  bent  his  head  in  reply,  meeting  her  eyes  with 
terrible  understanding.  She  darted  back  to  the 
spot  where  Deronda  was  still  casting  down  his 
eyes  in  that  hopeless  exploration  which  we  are 
apt  to  carry  on  over  a  space  we  have  examined 
in  vain.  "You  have  not  found  it?"  she  said, 
hurriedly. 

•He,  meeting  her  frightened  gaze,  immediately 
caught  alarm  from  it,  and  answered,  "  I  perhaps 
put  it  in  my  pocket,"  professing  to  feel  for  it 
there. 

She  watched  him  and  said,  "It  is  not  there? — 
you  put  it  on  the  table,"  with  a  penetrating  voice 
that  would  not  let  him  feign  to  have  found  it  hi 
his  pocket ;  and  immediately  she  rushed  out  of 
the  room.  Deronda  followed  her — she  was  gone 
into  the  sitting-room  below  to  look  for  her  fa- 
ther—she opened  the  door  of  the  bedroom  to  see 
if  he  were  there— she  looked  where  his  hat  usu- 
ally hung— she  turned  with  her  hands  clasped 
tight  and  her  lips  pale,  gazing  despairingly  out 
of  the  window.  Then  she  looked  up  at  Deronda, 
who  had  not  dared  to  speak  to  her  in  her  white 
agitation.  She  looked  up  at  him,  unable  to  utter 
a  word  — the  look  seemed  a  tacit  acceptance  of 
the  humiliation  she  felt  in  his  presence.  But 
he,  taking  her  clasped  hands  between  both  his, 
said,  in  a  tone  of  reverent  adoration, 

"  Mirah,  let  me  think  that  he  is  my  father  as 
well  as  yours — that  we  can  have  no  sorrow,  no 
disgrace,  no  joy  apart  I  will  rather  take  your 


grief  to  be  mine  than  I  would  take  the  brightest 
joy  of  another  woman.  Say  you  will  not  reject 
me — say  you  will  take  me  to  share  all  things  with 
you.  Say  you  will  promise  to  be  my  wife — say 
it  now.  I  have  been  in  doubt  so  long — I  have 
had  to  hide  my  love  so  long.  Say  that  now  and 
always  I  may  prove  to  you  that  I  love  you  with 
complete  love." 

The  change  in  Mirah  had  been  gradual.  She 
had  not  passed  at  once  from  anguish  to  the  full, 
blessed  consciousness  that,  in  this  moment  of 
grief  and  shame,  Deronda  was  giving  her  the 
highest  tribute  man  can  give  to  woman.  With 
the  first  tones  and  the  first  words,  she  had  only 
a  sense  of  solemn  comfort,  referring  this  good- 
ness of  Deronda's  to  his  feeling  for  Ezra.  But 
by  degrees  the  rapturous  assurance  of  unhoped- 
for good  took  possession  of  her  frame ;  her  face 
glowed  under  Deronda's  as  he  bent  over  her; 
yet  she  looked  up  still  with  intense  gravity,  as 
when  she  had  first  acknowledged  with  religious 
gratitude  that  he  had  thought  her  "  worthy  of 
the  best ;"  and  when  he  had  finished,  she  could 
say  nothing — she  could  only  lift  up  her  lips  to 
his  and  just  kiss  them,  as  if  that  were  the  sim- 
plest "  yes."  They  stood  then,  only  looking  at 
each  other,  he  holding  her  hands  between  his — 
too  happy  to  move,  meeting  so  fully  in  their  new 
consciousness  that  all  signs  would  have  seemed 
to  throw  them  farther  apart,  till  Mirah  said,  in  a 
whisper,  "  Let  us  go  and  comfort  Ezra." 


CHAPTER  LXIX. 

"The  hnman  nature  unto  which  I  felt 
That  I  belonged,  and  reverenced  with  love, 
Was  not  a  punctual  presence,  but  a  spirit 
Diffused  through  time  and  space,  with  aid  derived 
Of  evidence  from  monuments,  erect, 
Prostrate,  or  leaning  toward  their  common  rest 
In  earth,  the  widely  scattered  wreck  sublime 
Of  vanished  nations." 

— WOKDSWOBTII:  The  Prelude. 

SIR  HUGO  carried  out  his  plan  of  spending  part 
of  the  autumn  at  Diplow,  and  by  the  beginning  of 
October  his  presence  was  spreading  some  cheer- 
fulness in  the  neighborhood,  among  all  ranks 
and  persons  concerned,  from  the  stately  homes 
of  Brackenshaw  and  Quetcham  to  the  respectable 
shop-parlors  in  Wancester.  For  Sir  Hugo  was 
a  man  who  liked  to  show  himself  and  be  affable, 
a  Liberal  of  good  lineage,  who  confided  entirely 
in  Reform  as  not  likely  to  make  any  serious  dif- 
ference in  English, habits  of  feeling,  one  of  which 
undoubtedly  is  the  liking  to  behold  society  well 
fenced  and  adorned  with  hereditary  rank.  Hence 
he  made  Diplow  a  most  agreeable  house,  extend- 
ing his  invitations  to  old  Wancester  solicitors  and 
young  village  curates,  but  also  taking  some  care 
in  the  combination  of  his  guests,  and  not  feeding 
all  the  common  poultry  together,  so  that  they 
should  think  their  meal  no  particular  compliment. 
Easy-going  Lord  Brackenshaw,  for  example,  would 
not  mind  meeting  Robinson  the  attorney;  but 
Robinson  would  have  been  naturally  piqued  if 
he  had  been  asked  to  meet  a  set  of  people  who 
passed  for  his  equals.  On  all  these  points  Sir 
Hugo  was  well  informed  enough  at  once  to  gain 
popularity  for  himself  and  give  pleasure  to  oth- 
ers— two  results  which  eminently  suited  his  dis- 
position. The  Rector  of  Pennicote  now  found 
a  reception  at  Diplow  very  different  from  the 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


haughty  tolerance  he  had  undergone  during  the 
reign  of  Grandcourt.  It  was  not  only  that  the 
Baronet  liked  Mr.  Gascoigne,  it  was  that  he  de- 
sired to  keep  up  a  marked  relation  of  friendli- 
ness with  him  on  account  of  Mrs.  Grandcourt,  for 
whom  Sir  Hugo's  chivalry  had  become  more  and 
more  engaged.  Why  ?  The  chief  reason  was 
one  that  he  could  not  fully  communicate,  even  to 
Lady  Mallinger — for  he  would  not  tell  what  he 
thought  one  woman's  secret  to  another,  even 
though  the  other  was  his  wife — which  shows  that 
his  chivalry  included  a  rare  reticence. 

Deronda,  after  he  had  become  engaged  to  Mi- 
rah, felt  it  right  to  make  a  full  statement  of  his 
position  and  purposes  to  Sir  Hugo,  and  he  chose 
to  make  it  by  letter.  He  had  more  than  a  pre- 
sentiment that  his  fatherly  friend  would  feel  some 
dissatisfaction,  if  not  pain,  at  this  turn  of  destiny. 
In  reading  unwelcome  news,  instead  of  hearing 
it,  there  is  the  advantage  that  one  avoids  a  hasty 
expression  of  impatience  which  may  afterward 
be  repented  of.  Deronda  dreaded  that  verbal 
collision  which  makes  otherwise  pardonable  feel- 
ing lastingly  offensive. 

And  Sir  Hugo,  though  not  altogether  surprised, 
was  thoroughly  vexed.  His  immediate  resource 
was  to  take  the  letter  to  Lady  Mallinger,  who 
would  be  sure  to  express  an  astonishment  which 
her  husband  could  argue  against  as  unreasonable, 
and  in  this  way  divide  the  stress  of  his  discon- 
tent. And,  in  fact,  when  she  showed  herself  as- 
tonished and  distressed  that  all  Daniel's  wonder- 
ful talents,  and  the  comfort  of  having  him  in  the 
house,  should  have  ended  in  his  going  mad  in 
this  way  about  the  Jews,  the  Baronet  could  say, 

"  Oh,  nonsense,  my  dear !  Depend  upon  it,  Dan 
will  not  make  a  fool  of  himself.  He  has  large 
notions  about  Judaism  —  political  views  which 
you  can't  understand.  No  fear  but  Dan  will 
keep  himself  head  uppermost." 

But  with  regard  to  the  prospective  marriage, 
she  afforded  him  no  counter-irritant.  The  gentle 
lady  observed,  without  rancor,  that  she  had  little 
dreamed  of  what  was  coming  when  she  had  Mi- 
rah  to  sing  at  her  musical  party  and  give  lessons 
to  Amabel.  After  some  hesitation,  indeed,  she 
confessed  it  had  passed  through  her  mind  that 
after  a  proper  time  Daniel  might  marry  Mrs. 
Grandcourt — because  it  seemed  so  remarkable 
that  he  should  be  at  Genoa  just  at  that  time — 
and  although  she  herself  was  not  fond  of  widows, 
she  could  not  help  thinking  that  such  a  marriage 
would  have  been  better  than  his  going  altogether 
with  the  Jews.  But  Sir  Hugo  was  so  strongly 
of  the  same  opinion  that  he  could  not  correct  it 
as  a  feminine  mistake ;  and  his  ill  humor  at  the 
disproof  of  his  agreeable  conclusions  on  behalf 
of  Gwendolen  was  left  without  vent.  He  desired 
Lady  Mallinger  not  to  breathe  a  word  about  the 
affair  till  further  notice,  saying  to  himself,  "  If 
it  is  an  unkind  cut  to  the  poor  thing"  (meaning 
Gwendolen),  "  the  longer  she  is  without  knowing 
it,  the  better,  in  her  present  nervous  state.  And 
she  will  best  learn  it  from  Dan  himself."  Sir 
Hugo's  conjectures  had  worked  so  industriously 
with  his  knowledge  that  he  fancied  himself  well 
informed  concerning  the  whole  situation. 

Meanwhile  his  residence  with  his  family  at 
Diplow  enabled  him  to  continue  his  fatherly  at- 
tentions to  Gwendolen ;  and  in  these  Lady  Mal- 
linger, notwithstanding  her  small  liking  for  wid- 
ows, was  quite  willing  to  second  him. 


The  plan  of  removal  to  Offendene  had  been 
carried  out;  and  Gwendolen,  in  settling  there, 
maintained  a  calm  beyond  her  mother's  hopes. 
She  was  experiencing  some  of  that  peaceful  mel- 
ancholy which  comes  from  the  renunciation  of 
demands  for  self,  and  from  taking  the  ordinary 
good  of  existence,  and  especially  kindness,  even 
from  a  dog,  as  a  gift  above  expectation.  Does 
one  who  has  been  all  but  lost  in  a  pit  of  dark- 
ness complain  of  the  sweet  air  and  the  daylight  ? 
There  is  a  way  of  looking  at  our  life  daily  as  an 
escape,  and  taking  the  quiet  return  of  morn  and 
evening — still  more  the  star-like  outglowing  of 
some  pure  fellow-feeling,  some  generous  impulse 
breaking  our  inward  darkness — as  a  salvation 
that  reconciles  us  to  hardship.  Those  who  have 
a  selfr  knowledge  prompting  such  self -accusation 
as  Hamlet's  can  understand  this  habitual  feeling 
of  rescue.  And  it  was  felt  by  Gwendolen  as  she 
lived  through  and  through  again  the  terrible  his- 
tory of  her  temptations,  from  their  first  form  of 
illusory  self-pleasing,  when  she  struggled  away 
from  the  hold  of  conscience,  to  their  latest  form 
of  an  urgent  hatred  dragging  her  toward  its  sat- 
isfaction, while  she  prayed  and  cried  for  the  help 
of  that  conscience  which  she  had  once  forsaken. 
She  was  now  dwelling  on  every  word  of  Deron- 
da's  that  pointed  to  her  past  deliverance  from 
the  worst  evil  hi  herself  and  the  worst  infliction 
of  it  on  others,  and  on  every  word  that  carried  a 
force  to  resist  self-despair. 

But  she  was  also  upborne  by  the  prospect  of 
soon  seeing  him  again :  she  did  not  imagine  him 
otherwise  than  always  within  her  reach,  her  su- 
preme need  of  him  blinding  her  to  the  separate- 
ness  of  his  life,  the  whole  scene  of  which  she  fill- 
ed with  his  relation  to  her — no  unique  preoccu- 
pation of  Gwendolen's,  for  we  are  all  apt  to  fall 
into  this  passionate  egoism  of  imagination,  not 
only  toward  our  fellow-men,  but  toward  God.  And 
the  future  which  she  turned  her  face  to  with  a 
willing  step  was  one  where  she  would  be  contin- 
ually assimilating  herself  to  some  type  that  he 
would  hold  before  her.  Had  he  not  first  risen 
on  her  vision  as  a  corrective  presence  which  she 
had  recognized  in  the  beginning  with  resentment, 
and  at  last  with  entire  love  and  trust  ?  She  could 
not  spontaneously  think  of  an  end  to  that  reli- 
ance which  had  become  to  her  imagination  like 
the  firmness  of  the  earth,  the  only  condition  of 
her  walking. 

And  Deronda  was  not  long  before  he  came  to 
Diplow,  which  was  at  a  more  convenient  distance 
from  town  than  the  Abbey.  He  had  wished  to 
carry  out  a  plan  for  taking  Ezra  and  Mirah  to  a 
mild  spot  on  the  coast,  while  he  prepared  anoth- 
er home  that  Mirah  might  enter  as  his  bride,  and 
where  they  might  unitedly  watch  over  her  broth- 
er. But  Ezra  begged  not  to  be  removed,  unless 
it  were  to  go  with  them  to  the  East.  All  outward 
solicitations  were  becoming  more  and  more  of  a 
burden  to  him ;  but  his  mind  dwelt  on  the  possi- 
bility of  this  voyage  with  a  visionary  joy.  Deron- 
da, in  his  preparations  for  the  marriage,  which  he 
hoped  might  not  be  deferred  beyond  a  couple  of 
months,  wished  to  have  fuller  consultation  as  to 
his  resources  and  affairs  generally  with  Sir  Hugo, 
and  here  was  a  reason  for  not  delaying  his  visit 
to  Diplow.  But  he  thought  quite  as  much  of  an- 
other reason — his  promise  to  Gwendolen.  The 
sense  of  blessedness  in  his  own  lot  had  yet  an 
aching  anxiety  at  its  heart :  this  may  be  held  par* 


270 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


adoxical,  for  the  beloved  lover  is  always  called 
happy,  and  happiness  is  considered  as  a  well- 
fleshed  indifference  to  sorrow  outside  it.  But 
human  experience  is  usually  paradoxical,  if  that 
means  incongruous  with  the  phrases  of  current 
talk  or  even  current  philosophy.  It  was  no  trea- 
son to  Mirah,  but  a  part  of  that  full  nature  which 
made  his  love  for  her  the  more  worthy,  that  his 
joy  in  her  could  hold  by  its  side  the  care  for  an- 
other. For  what  is  love  itself,  for  the  one  we 
love  best  ? — an  infolding  of  immeasurable  cares 
which  yet  are  better  than  any  joys  outside  our 
love. 

Deronda  came  twice  to  Diplow,  and  saw  Gwen- 
dolen twice — and  yet  he  went  back  to  town  with- 
out having  told  her  any  thing  about  the  change 
in  his  lot  and  prospects.  He  blamed  himself; 
but  in  all  momentous  communication  likely  to 
give  pain  we  feel  dependent  on  some  preparato- 
ry turn  of  words  or  associations,  some  agreement 
of  the  other's  mood  with  the  probable  effect  of 
what  we  have  to  impart.  In  the  first  interview 
Gwendolen  was  so  absorbed  in  what  she  had  to 
say  to  him,  so  full  of  questions  which  he  must 
answer,  about  the  arrangement  of  her  life,  what 
she  could  do  to  make  herself  less  ignorant,  how 
she  could  be  kindest  to  every  body,  and  make 
amends  for  her  selfishness  and  try  to  be  rid  of 
it,  that  Deronda  utterly  shrank  from  waiving  her 
immediate  wants  in  order  to  speak  of  himself, 
nay,  from  inflicting  a  wound  on  her  in  these  mo- 
ments when  she  was  leaning  on  him  for  help  in 
her  path.  In  the  second  interview,  when  he  went 
with  new  resolve  to  command  the  conversation 
into  some  preparatory  track,  he  found  her  in  a 
state  of  deep  depression,  overmastered  by  those 
distasteful,  miserable  memories  which  forced 
themselves  on  her  as  something  more  real  and 
ample  than  any  new  material  out  of  which  she 
could  mould  her  future.  She  cried  hysterically, 
and  said  that  he  would  always  despise  her.  He 
could  only  seek  words  of  soothing  and  encourage- 
ment ;  and  when  she  gradually  revived  under 
them,  with  that  pathetic  look  of  renewed  child- 
like interest  which  we  see  in  eyes  where  the  lashes 
are  still  beaded  with  tears,  it  was  impossible  to 
lay  another  burden  on  her. 

But  time  went  on,  and  he  felt  it  a  pressing 
duty  to  make  the  difficult  disclosure.  Gwendo- 
len, it  was  true,  never  recognized  his  having  any 
affairs ;  and  it  had  never  even  occurred  to  her 
to  ask  him  why  he  happened  to  be  at  Genoa. 
But  this  unconsciousness  of  hers  would  make  a 
sudden  revelation  of  affairs  that  were  determin- 
ing his  course  in  life  all  the  heavier  blow  to  her ; 
and  if  he  left  the  revelation  to  be  made  by  indif- 
ferent persons,  she  would  feel  that  he  had  treated 
her  with  cruel  inconsiderateness.  He  could  not 
make  the  communication  in  writing :  his  tender- 
ness could  not  bear  to  think  of  her  reading  his 
virtual  farewell  in  solitude,  and  perhaps  feeling 
his  words  full  of  a  hard  gladness  for  himself  and 
indifference  for  her.  He  went  down  to  Diplow 
again,  feeling  that  every  other  peril  was  to  be  in- 
curred rather  than  that  of  returning  and  leaving 
her  still  in  ignorance. 

On  this  third  visit  Deronda  found  Hans  Mey- 
rick  installed  with  his  easel  at  Diplow,  beginning 
his  picture  of  the  three  daughters  sitting  on  a 
bank  "in  the  Gainsborough  style,"  and  varying 
his  work  by  rambling  to  Pennicote  to  sketch  the 
village  children  and  improve  his  acquaintance 


with  the  Gascoignes.  Hans  appeared  to  have  re- 
covered his  vivacity,  but  Deronda  detected  some 
feigning  in  it,  as  we  detect  the  artificiality  of  a 
lady's  bloom  from  its  being  a  little  too  high-toned 
and  steadily  persistent  (a  "Fluctuating  Rouge" 
not  having  yet  appeared  among  the  advertise- 
ments). Also,  with  all  his  grateful  friendship 
and  admiration  for  Deronda,  Hans  could  not  help 
a  certain  irritation  against  him  such  as  extremely 
incautious,  open  natures  are  apt  to  feel  when  the 
breaking  of  a  friend's  reserve  discloses  a  state  of 
things  not  merely  unsuspected,  but  the  reverse  of 
what  had  been  hoped  and  ingeniously  conjectured. 
It  is  true  that  poor  Hans  had  always  cared  chiefly 
to  confide  in  Deronda,  and  had  been  quite  incuri- 
ous as  to  any  confidence  that  might  have  been 
given  in  return ;  but  what  outpourer  of  his  own 
affairs  is  not  tempted  to  think  any  hint  of  his 
friend's  affairs  as  an  egotistic  irrelevance  ?  That 
was  no  reason  why  it  was  not  rather  a  sore  re- 
flection to  Hans  that  while  he  had  been  all  along 
naively  opening  his  heart  about  Mirah,  Deronda 
had  kept  secret  a  feeling  of  rivalry  which  now 
revealed  itself  as  the  important  determining  fact. 
Moreover,  it  is  always  at  their  peril  that  our 
friends  turn  out  to  be  something  more  than  we 
were  aware  of.  Hans  must  be  excused  for  these 
promptings  of  bruised  sensibility,  since  he  had 
not  allowed  them  to  govern  his  substantial  con- 
duct: he  had  the  consciousness  of  having  done 
right  by  his  fortunate  friend ;  or,  as  he  told  him- 
self, "  his  metal  had  given  a  better  ring  than  he 
would  have  sworn  to  beforehand."  For  Hans  had 
always  said  that  in  point  of  virtue  he  was  a  dilet- 
tante :  which  meant  that  he  was  very  fond  of  it  in 
other  people,  but  if  he  meddled  with  it  himself 
he  cut  a  poor  figure.  Perhaps,  in  reward  of  his 
good  behavior,  he  gave  his  tongue  the  more  free- 
dom ;  and  he  was  too  fully  possessed  by  the  no- 
tion of  Deronda's  happiness  to  have  a  concep- 
tion of  what  he  was  feeling  about  Gwendolen,  so 
that  he  spoke  of  her  without  hesitation. 

"When  did  you  come  down,  Hans?"  said  De- 
ronda, joining  him  in  the  grounds  where  he  was 
making  a  study  of  the  requisite  bank  and  trees. 

"  Oh,  ten  days  ago — before  the  time  Sir  Hugo 
fixed.  I  ran  down  with  Rex  Gascoigne  and 
staid  at  the  Rectory  a  day  or  two.  I'm  up  in  all 
the  gossip  of  these  parts — I  know  the  state  of 
the  wheelwright's  interior,  and  have  assisted  at 
an  infant-school  examination.  Sister  Anna  with 
the  good  upper  lip  escorted  me,  else  I  should 
have  been  mobbed  by  three  urchins  and  an  idiot, 
because  of  my  long  hair  and  a  general  appear- 
ance which  departs  from  the  Pennicote  type  of 
the  beautiful.  Altogether,  the  village  is  idyllic. 
Its  only  fault  is  a  dark  curate  with  broad  shoul- 
ders and  broad  trowsers  who  ought  to  have  gone 
into  the  heavy  drapery  line.  The  Gascoigncs  are 
perfect — besides  being  related  to  the  Vandyck 
duchess.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  her  in  her  black 
robes  at  a  distance,  though  she  doesn't  show  to 
visitors." 

"  She  was  not  staying  at  the  Rectory  ?"  said 
Deronda. 

"  No  ;  but  I  was  taken  to  Offcndene  to  see  the 
old  house,  and,  as  a  consequence,  I  saw  the  duch- 
ess'a  family.  I  suppose  you  have  been  there, 
and  know  all  about  them  ?" 

"Yes,  I  have  been  there,"  said  Deronda,  qui- 
etly. 

"A  fine  old  place.     An  excellent  setting  for  a 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


271 


widow  with  romantic  fortunes.  And  she  seems 
to  have  had  several  romances.  I  think  I  have 
found  out  that  there  was  one  between  her  and 
my  friend  Rex." 

"Not  long  before  her  marriage,  then?"  said 
Deronda,  really  interested;  "for  they  had  only 
been  a  year  at  Otfendene.  How  came  you  to 
know  any  thing  of  it  ?" 

"  Oh — not  ignorant  of  what  it  is  to  be  a  mis- 
erable devil,  I  learn  to  gloat  on  the  signs  of 
misery  in  others.  I  found  out  that  Rex  never 
goes  to  Offendene,  and  has  never  seen  the  duch- 
ess since  she  came  back;  and  Miss  Gascoigne 
let  fall  something  in  our  talk  about  charade-act- 
ing— for  I  went  through  some  of  my  nonsense  to 
please  the  young  ones — something  which  proved 
to  me  that  Rex  was  once  hovering  about  his  fair 
cousin  close  enough  to  get  singed.  I  don't 
know  what  was  her  part  in  the  affair.  Perhaps 
the  duke  came  in  and  carried  her  off.  That  is 
always  the  way  when  an  exceptionally  worthy 
young  man  forms  an  attachment.  I  understand 
now  why  Gascoigne  talks  of  making  the  law  his 
mistress  and  remaining  a  bachelor.  But  these 
are  green  resolves.  Since  the  duke  did  not  get 
himself  drowned  for  your  sake,  it  may  turn  out 
to  be  for  my  friend  Rex's  sake.  Who  knows  ?" 

"Is  it  absolutely  necessary  that  Mrs.  Grand- 
court  should  marry  again  ?"  said  Deronda,  ready 
to  add  that  Hans's  success  in  constructing  her 
fortunes  hitherto  had  not  been  enough  to  war- 
rant a  new  attempt. 

"  You  monster !"  retorted  Hans,  "  do  you  want 
her  to  wear  weeds  for  you  all  her  life — burn  her- 
self in  perpetual  suttee  while  you  are  alive  and 
merry?" 

Deronda  could  say  nothing,  but  he  looked  so 
much  annoyed  that  Hans  turned  the  current  of 
his  chat,  and  when  he  was  alone,  shrugged  his 
shoulders  a  little  over  the  thought  that  there  re- 
ally had  been  some  stronger  feeling  between  De- 
ronda and  the  duchess  than  Mirah  would  like  to 
know  of.  "Why  didn't  she  fall  in  love  with 
me  ?"  thought  Hans,  laughing  at  himself.  "  She 
would  have  had  no  rivals.  No  woman  ever  want- 
ed to  discuss  theology  with  me." 

No  wonder  that  Deronda  winced  under  that 
sort  of  joking  with  a  whip-lash.  It  touched  sen- 
sibilities that  were  already  quivering  with  the 
anticipation  of  witnessing  some  of  that  pain  to 
which  even  Hans's  light  words  seemed  to  give 
more  reality — any  sort  of  recognition  by  another 
giving  emphasis  to  the  subject  of  our  anxiety. 
And  now  he  had  come  down  with  the  firm  re- 
solve that  he  would  not  again  evade  the  trial. 
The  next  day  he  rode  to  Offendene.  He  had 
sent  word  that  he  intended  to  call  and  to  ask  if 
Gwendolen  could  receive  him  ;  and  he  found  her 
awaiting  him  in  the  old  drawing-room  where 
some  chief  crises  of  her  life  had  happened.  She 
seemed  less  sad  than  he  had  seen  her  since  her 
husband's  death  ;  there  was  no  smile  on  her  face, 
but  a  placid  self-possession,  in  contrast  with  the 
mood  in  which  he  had  last  found  her.  She  was 
ail  the  more  alive  to  the  sadness  perceptible  in 
Deronda ;  and  they  were  no  sooner  seated  —  he 
at  a  little  distance  opposite  to  her  —  than  she 
said, 

"  You  were  afraid  of  coming  to  see  me,  be- 
cause I  was  so  full  of  grief  and  despair  the  last 
time ;  but  I  am  not  so  to-day.  I  have  been  sor- 
ry ever  since.  I  have  been  making  it  a  reason 


why  I  should  keep  up  my  hope  and  be  as  cheer- 
ful as  I  can,  because  I  would  not  give  you  any 
pain  about  me." 

There  was  an  unwonted  sweetness  in  Gwendo- 
len's tone  and  look  as  she  uttered  these  words 
that  seemed  to  Deronda  to  infuse  the  utmost 
cruelty  into  the  task  now  laid  upon  him.  But 
he  felt  obliged  to  make  his  answer  a  beginning 
of  the  task. 

"  I  am  in  some  trouble  to-day,"  he  said,  look- 
ing at  her  rather  mournfully ;  "  but  it  is  because 
I  have  things  to  tell  you  which  you  will  almost 
think  it  a  want  of  confidence  on  my  part  not  to 
have  spoken  of  before.  They  are  things  affect- 
ing my  own  life — my  own  future.  I  shall  seem 
to  have  made  an  ill  return  to  you  for  the  trust 
you  have  placed  in  me — never  to  have  given  you 
an  idea  of  events  that  make  great  changes  for 
me.  But  when  we  have  been  together  we  have 
hardly  had  time  to  enter  into  subjects  which  at 
the  moment  were  really  less  pressing  to  me  than 
the  trials  you  have  been  going  through."  There 
was  a  sort  of  timid  tenderness  in  Deronda's  deep 
tones,  and  he  paused  with  a  pleading  look,  as  if 
it  had  been  Gwendolen  only  who  had  conferred 
any  thing  in  her  scenes  of  beseeching  and  con- 
fession. 

A  thrill  of  surprise  was  visible  in  her.  Such 
meaning  as  she  found  in  his  words  had  shaken 
her,  but  without  causing  fear.  Her  mind  had 
flown  at  once  to  some  change  in  his  position  with 
regard  to  Sir  Hugo  and  Sir  Hugo's  property.  She 
said,  with  a  sense  of  comfort  from  Deronda's  way 
of  asking  her  pardon, 

"  You  never  thought  of  any  thing  but  what  you 
could  do  to  help  me ;  and  I  was  so  troublesome. 
How  could  you  tell  me  things  ?" 

"  It  will  perhaps  astonish  you,"  said  Deronda, 
"  that  I  have  only  quite  lately  known  who  were 
my  parents." 

Gwendolen  was  not  astonished :  she  felt  the 
more  assured  that  her  expectations  of  what  was 
coming  were  right.  Deronda  went  on  without 
check : 

"  The  reason  why  you  found  me  in  Italy  was 
that  I  had  gone  there  to  learn  that — in  fact,  to 
meet  my  mother.  It  was  by  her  wish  that  I  was 
brought  up  in  ignorance  of  my  parentage.  She 
parted  with  me  after  my  father's  death,  when  I 
was  a  little  creature.  But  she  is  now  very  ill, 
and  she  felt  that  the  secrecy  ought  not  to  be  any 
longer  maintained.  Her  chief  reason  had  been 
that  she  did  not  wish  me  to  know  I  was  a  Jew." 

"A  Jew  /"  Gwendolen  exclaimed,  in  a  low  tone 
of  amazement,  with  an  utterly  frustrated  look,  as 
if  some  confusing  potion  were  creeping  through 
her  system. 

Deronda  colored  and  did  not  speak,  while 
Gwendolen,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  floor,  was 
struggling  to  find  her  way  in  the  dark  by  the  aid 
of  various  reminiscences.  She  seemed  at  last  to 
have  arrived  at  some  judgment;  for  she  looked 
up  at  Deronda  again,  and  said,  as  if  remonstra- 
ting against  the  mother's  conduct, 

What  difference  need  that  have  made  ?" 
It  has  made  a  great  difference  to  me  that  I 
have  known  it,"  said  Deronda,  emphatically ;  but 
he  could  not  go  on  easily — the  distance  between 
her  ideas  and  his  acted  like  a  difference  of  native 
language,  making  him  uncertain  what  force  his 
words  would  carry. 

Gwendolen  meditated  again,  and  then  said,  feel- 


272 


DANIEL  DEROXDA. 


ingly,  "  I  hope  there  is  nothing  to  make  you  mind. 
You  are  just  the  same  as  if  you  were  not  a  Jew." 

She  meant  to  assure  him  "that  nothing  of  that 
external  sort  could  affect  the  way  in  which  she 
regarded  him,  or  the  way  in  which  he  could  in- 
fluence her.  Deronda  was  a  little  helped  by  this 
misunderstanding. 

"  The  discovery  was  far  from  being  painful  to 
me,"  he  said.  "  I  had  been  gradually  prepared 
for  it,  and  I  was  glad  of  it.  I  had  been  prepared 
for  it  by  becoming  intimate  with  a  very  remark- 
able Jew,  whose  ideas  have  attracted  me  so  much 
that  I  think  of  devoting  the  best  part  of  my  life 
to  some  effort  at  giving  them  effect." 

Again  Gwendolen  seemed  shaken — again  there 
was  a  look  of  frustration,  but  this  time  it  was 
mingled  with  alarm.  She  looked  at  Deronda  with 
lips  childishly  parted.  It  was  not  that  she  had 
yet  connected  his  words  with  Mirah  and  her 
brother,  but  that  they  had  inspired  her  with  a 
dreadful  presentiment  of  mountainous  travel  for 
her  mind  before  it  could  reach  Deronda's.  Great 
ideas  in  general  which  she  had  attributed  to  him 
seemed  to  make  no  great  practical  difference,  and 
were  not  formidable  in  the  same  way  as  these 
mysteriously  shadowed  particular  ideas.  He 
could  not  quite  divine  what  was  going  on  within 
her ;  he  could  only  seek  the  least  abrupt  path  of 
disclosure. 

"  That  is  an  object,"  he  said,  after  a  moment, 
"  which  will  by-and-by  force  me  to  leave  England 
for  some  time — for  some  years.  I  have  purposes 
which  will  take  me  to  the  East." 

Here  was  something  clearer,  but  all  the  more 
immediately  agitating.  Gwendolen's  lip  began  to 
tremble.  "  But  you  will  come  back  ?"  she  said, 
tasting  her  own  tears  as  they  fell,  before  she 
thought  of  drying  them. 

Deronda  could  not  sit  still.  He  rose,  grasping 
his  coat  collar,  and  went  to  prop  himself  against 
the  corner  of  the  mantel-piece,  at  a  different  an- 
gle from  her  face.  But  when  she  had  pressed 
her  handkerchief  against  her  cheeks,  she  turned 
and  looked  up  at  him,  awaiting  an  answer. 

"  If  I  live,"  said  Deronda — "  some  time." 

They  were  both  silent.  He  could  not  persuade 
himself  to  say  more  unless  she  led  up  to  it  by 
a  question ;  and  she  was  apparently  meditating 
something  that  she  had  to  say. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  she  asked  at 
last,  very  timidly.  "  Can  I  understand  the  ideas, 
or  am  I  too  ignorant  ?" 

"  I  am  going  to  the  East  to  become  better  ac- 
quainted with  the  condition  of  my  race  in  various 
countries  there,"  said  Deronda,  gently — anxious 
to  be  as  explanatory  as  he  could  on  what  was 
the  impersonal  part  of  their  separateness  from 
each  other.  "  The  idea  that  I  am  possessed  with 
is  that  of  restoring  a  political  existence  to  my 
people,  making  them  a  nation  again,  giving  them 
a  national  centre,  such  as  the  English  have, 
though  they  too  are  scattered  over  the  face  of 
the  globe.  That  is  a  task  which  presents  itself 
to  me  as  a  duty :  I  am  resolved  to  begin  it,  how- 
ever feebly.  I  am  resolved  to  devote  my  life  to 
it.  At  the  least,  I  may  awaken  a  movement  in 
other  minds,  such  as  has  been  awakened  in  my 
own." 

There  was  a  long  silence  between  them.  The 
world  seemed  getting  larger  round  poor  Gwen- 
dolen, and  she  more  solitary  and  helpless  in  the 
midst.  The  thought  that  he  might  come  back 


after  going  to  the  East  sank  before  the  bewilder- 
ing vision  of  these  wide-stretching  purposes  in 
which  she  felt  herself  reduced  to  a  mere  speck. 
There  comes  a  terrible  moment  to  many  souls 
when  the  great  movements  of  the  world,  the  lar- 
ger destinies  of  mankind,  which  have  lain  aloof 
in  newspapers  and  other  neglected  reading,  enter 
like  an  earthquake  into  their  own  lives;  when 
the  slow  urgency  of  growing  generations  turns 
into  the  tread  of  an  invading  army  or  the  dire 
clash  of  civil  war,  and  gray  fathers  know  noth- 
ing to  seek  for  but  the  corpses  of  their  bloom- 
ing sons,  and  girls  forget  all  vanity  to  make  lint 
and  bandages  which  may  serve  for  the  shattered 
limbs  of  their  betrothed  husbands.  Then  it  is 
as  if  the  Invisible  Power  that  has  been  the  object 
of  lip-worship  and  lip-resignation  became  visible, 
according  to  the  imagery  of  the  Hebrew  poet, 
making  the  flames  his  chariot  and  riding  on  the 
wings  of  the  wind,  till  the  mountains  smoke  and 
the  plains  shudder  under  the  rolling,  fiery  visita- 
tion. Often  the  good  cause  seems  to  lie  pros- 
trate under  the  thunder  of  unrelenting  force,  the 
martyrs  live  reviled,  they  die,  and  no  angel  is  seen 
holding  forth  the  crown  and  the  palm  branch. 
Then  it  is  that  the  submission  of  the  soul  to  the 
Highest  is  tested,  and  even  in  the  eyes  of  frivoli- 
ty life  looks  out  from  the  scene  of  human  strug- 
gle with  the  awful  face  of  duty,  and  a  religion 
shows  itself  which  is  something  else  than  a  pri- 
vate consolation. 

That  was  the  sort  of  crisis  which  was  at  this 
moment  beginning  in  Gwendolen's  small  life: 
she  was  for  the  first  time  feeling  the  pressure  of 
a  vast  mysterious  movement,  for  the  first  time 
being  dislodged  from  her  supremacy  in  her  own 
world,  and  getting  a  sense  that  her  horizon  was 
but  a  dipping  onward  of  an  existence  with  which 
her  own  was  revolving.  All  the  troubles  of  her 
wifchood  and  widowhood  had  still  left  her  with 
the  implicit  impression  which  had  accompanied 
her  from  childhood,  that  whatever  surrounded 
her  was  somehow  specially  for  her,  and  it  was 
because  of  this  that  no  personal  jealousy  had 
been  roused  in  her  in  relation  to  Deronda :  she 
could  not  spontaneously  think  of  him  as  right- 
fully belonging  to  others  more  than  to  her.  But 
here  had  come  a  shock  which  went  deeper  than 
personal  jealousy — something  spiritual  and  vague- 
ly tremendous  that  thrust  her  away,  and  yet 
quelled  all  anger  into  self-humiliation. 

There  had  been  a  long  silence.  Deronda  had 
stood  still,  even  thankful  for  an  interval  before 
he  needed  to  say  more,  and  Gwendolen  had  sat 
like  a  statue,  with  her  wrists  lying  over  each 
other  and  her  eyes  fixed — the  intensity  of  her 
mental  action  arresting  all  other  excitation.  At 
length  something  occurred  to  her  that  made  her 
turn  her  face  to  Deronda  and  say,  in  a  trembling 
•oice, 

"  Is  that  all  you  can  tell  me  ?" 

The  question  was  like  a  dart  to  him.  "The 
Jew  whom  I  mentioned  just  now,"  he  answered, 
not  without  a  certain  tremor  in  his  tones  too, 
the  remarkable  man  who  has  greatly  influenced 
my  mind,  has  not,  perhaps,  been  totally  unheard 
of  by  you.  He  is  the  brother  of  Miss  Lapidoth, 
whom  you  have  often  heard  sing." 

A  great  wave  of  remembrance  passed  through 
Gwendolen  and  spread  as  a  deep,  painful  flush 
over  face  and  neck.  It  had  come  first  as  the 
scene  of  that  morning  when  she  had  called  on, 


BOOK  VIII.— FRUIT  AND  SEED. 


273 


Mirah,  and  heard  Deronda's  voice  reading,  and 
been  told,  without  then  heeding  it,  that  he  was 
reading  Hebrew  with  Mirah's  brother. 

"  He  is  very  ill — very  near  death  now,"  Deronda 
went  on,  nervously,  and  then  stopped  short.  He 
felt  that  he  must  wait.  Would  she  divine  the  rest  ? 

"Did  she  tell  you  that  I  went  to  her?"  said 
Gwendolen,  abruptly,  looking  up  at  him. 

"  No,"  said  Deronda.   "  I  don't  understand  you." 

She  turned  away  her  eyes  again,  and  sat  think- 
ing. Slowly  the  color  died  out  of  face  and  neck, 
and  she  was  as  pale  as  before — with  that  almost 
withered  paleness  which  is  seen  after  a  painful 
flush.  At  last  she  said,  without  turning  toward 
him,  in  a  low,  measured  voice,  as  if  she  were  only 
thinking  aloud  in  preparation  for  future  speech, 

"But  can  you  marry?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Deronda,  also  in  a  low  voice.  "  I 
am  going  to  marry." 

At  first  there  was  no  change  in  Gwendolen's 
attitude :  she  only  began  to  tremble  visibly ;  then 
she  looked  before  her  with  dilated  eyes,  as  at 
something  lying  in  front  of  her,  till  she  stretched 
her 'arms  out  straight,  and  cried,  with  a  smother- 
ed voice, 

"  I  said  I  should  be  forsaken.  I  have  been  a 
cruel  woman.  And -I  am  forsaken." 

Deronda's  anguish  was  intolerable.  He  could 
not  help  himself.  He  seized  her  outstretched 
hands  and  held  them  together,  and  kneeled  at 
her  feet.  She  was  the  victim  of  his  happiness. 

"  I  am  cruel  too ;  I  am  cruel,"  he  repeated,  with 
a  sort  of  groan,  looking  up  at  her  imploringly. 

His  presence  and  touch  seemed  to  dispel  a  hor- 
rible vision,  and  she  met  his  upward  look  of  sor- 
row with  something  like  the  return  of  conscious- 
ness after  fainting.  Then  she  dwelt  on  it  with 
that  growing  pathetic  movement  of  the  brow 
which  accompanies  the  revival  of  some  tender 
recollection.  The  look  of  sorrow  brought  back 
what  seemed  a  very  far-off  moment  —  the  first 
time  she  had  ever  seen  it,  in  the  library  at  the 
Abbey.  Sobs  rose,  and  great  tears  fell  fast. 
Deronda  would  not  let  her  hands  go— held  them 
still  with  one  of  his,  and  himself  pressed  her 
handkerchief  against  her  eyes.  She  submitted 
like  a  half -soothed  child,  making  an  effort  to 
speak,  which  was  hindered  by  struggling  sobs. 
At  last  she  succeeded  in  saying,  brokenly, 

"I  said — I  said — it  should  be  better — better 
with  me — for  having  known  you." 

His  eyes  too  were  larger  with  tears.  She 
wrested  one  of  her  hands  from  his,  and  returned 
his  action,  pressing  his  tears  away. 

"  We  shall  not  be  quite  parted,"  he  said.  "  I 
will  write  to  you  always,  when  I  can,  and  you  will 
answer  ?" 

He  waited  till  she  said,  in  a  whisper, "  I  will  try." 

"  I  shall  be  more  with  you  than  I  used  to  be," 
Deronda  said,  with  gentle  urgency,  releasing  her 
hands  and  rising  from  his  kneeling  posture.  "  If 
we  had  been  much  together  before,  we  should 
have  felt  our  differences  more,  and  seemed  to  get 
farther  apart.  Now  we  can  perhaps  never  see 
each  other  again.  But  our  minds  may  get  nearer." 

Gwendolen  said  nothing,  but  rose  too,  automat- 
ically. Her  withered  look  of  grief,  such  as  the 
sun  often  shines  on  when  the  blinds  are  drawn 
up  after  the  burial  of  life's  joy,  made  him  hate 
his  own  words:  they  seemed  to  have  the  hard- 
ness of  easy  consolation  in  them.  She  felt  that 
he  was  going,  and  that  nothing  could  hinder  it. 


The  sense  of  it  was  like  a  dreadful  whisper  in 
her  ear,  which  dulled  all  other  consciousness; 
and  she  had  not  known  that  she  was  rising. 

Deronda  could  not  speak  again.  He  thought 
that  they  must  part  in  silence,  but  it  was  difficult 
to  move  toward  the  parting,  till  she  looked  at 
him  with  a  sort  of  intention  in  her  eyes,  which 
helped  him.  He  advanced  to  put  out  his  hand 
silently,  and  when  she  had  placed  hers  within  it, 
she  said,  what  her  mind  had  been  laboring  with, 

"  You  have  been  very  good  to  me.  I  have  de- 
served nothing.  I  will  try — try  to  live.  I  shall 
think  of  you.  What  good  have  I  been  ?  Only 
harm.  Don't  let  me  be  harm  to  you.  It  shall 
be  the  better  for  me — " 

She  could  not  finish.  It  was  not  that  she  was 
sobbing,  but  that  the  intense  effort  with  which 
she  spoke  made  her  too  tremulous.  The  burden 
of  that  difficult  rectitude  toward  him  was  a  weight 
her  frame  tottered  under. 

She  bent  forward  to  kiss  his  cheek,  and  he 
kissed  hers.  Then  they  looked  at  each  other  for  an 
instant,  with  clasped  hands,  and  he  turned  away. 

When  he  was  quite  gone,  her  mother  came  in 
and  found  her  sitting  motionless. 

"  Gwendolen,  dearest,  you  look  very  ill,"  she  said, 
bending  over  her  and  touching  her  cold  hands. 

"Yes,  mamma.  But  don't  be  afraid.  I  am 
going  to  live,"  said  Gwendolen,  bursting  out  hys- 
terically. 

Her  mother  persuaded  her  to  go  to  bed,  and 
watched  by  her.     Through  the  day  and  half  the 
night  she  fell  continually  into  fits  of  shrieking, 
but  cried  in  the  midst  of  them  to  her  mother,     . 
"  Don't  be  afraid.     I  shall  live.     I  mean  to  live." 

After  all,  she  slept ;  and  when  she  waked  hi 
the  morning  light,  she  looked  up  fixedly  at  her 
mother,  and  said,  tenderly,  "Ah,  poor  mamma! 
You  have  been  sitting  up  with  me.  Don't  be  un- 
happy. I  shall  live.  I  shall  be  better." 


CHAPTER  LXX. 

In  the  checkered  area  of  human  experience  the 
seasons  are  all  mingled  as  in  the  golden  age:  fruit 
and 'blossom  hang  together;  in  the  same  moment 
the  sickle  is  reapiug  and  the  seed  is  sprinkled ;  one 
tends  the  green  cluster  and  another  treads  the  wine- 
press. Nay,  in  each  of  our  lives  harvest  and  spring- 
time are  continually  one,  until  Death  himself  gathers 
us  and  sows  us  anew  in  his  invisible  fields. 

AMONG  the  blessings  of  love  there  is  hardly 
one  more  exquisite  than  the  sense  that  in  uniting 
the  beloved  life  to  ours  we  can  watch  over  its 
happiness,  bring  comfort  where  hardship  was, 
and  over  memories  of  privation  and  suffering 
open  the  sweetest  fountains  of  joy.  Deronda's 
love  for  Mirah  was  strongly  imbued  with  that 
blessed  protectiveness.  Even  with  infantine  feet 
she  had  begun  to  tread  among  thorns ;  and  the 
first  time  he  had  beheld  her  face  it  had  seemed 
to  him  the  girlish  image  of  despair. 

But  now  she  was  glowing  like  a  dark-tipped 
yet  delicate  ivory-tinted  flower  in  the  warm  sun- 
light of  content,  thinking  of  any  possible  grief  as 
part  of  that  life  with  Deronda  which  she  could 
call  by  no  other  name  than  good.  And  he 
watched  the  sober  gladness  which  gave  new 
beauty  to  her  movements  and  her  habitual  atti- 
tudes of  repose  with  a  delight  which  made  him 
say  to  himself  that  it  was  enough  of  personal  joy 


2*4 


DANIEL  DERONDA. 


for  him  to  save  her  from  pain.  She  knew  noth- 
ing of  Hans's  struggle  or  of  Gwendolen's  pang ; 
for  after  the  assurance  that  Deronda's  hidden 
love  had  been  for  her,  she  easily  explained  Gwen- 
dolen's eager  solicitude  about  him  as  part  of  a 
grateful  dependence  on  his  goodness,  such  as  she 
herself  had  known.  And  all  Deronda's  words 
about  Mrs.  Grandcourt  confirmed  that  view  of 
their  relation,  though  he  never  touched  on  it  ex- 
cept in  the  most  distant  manner.  Mirah  was 
ready  to  believe  that  he  had  been  a  rescuing  an- 
gel to  many  besides  herself.  The  only  wonder 
was  that  she  among  them  all  was  to  have  the 
bliss  of  being  continually  by  his  side. 

So,  when  the  bridal  veil  was  around  Mirah,  it 
hid  no  doubtful  tremors — only  a  thrill  of  awe 
at  the  acceptance  of  a  great  gift  which  required 
great  uses.  And  the  velvet  canopy  never  covered 
a  more  goodly  bride  and  bridegroom,  to  whom 
their  people  might  more  wisely  wish  offspring ; 
more  truthful  lips  never  touched  the  sacramental 
marriage  wine ;  the  marriage  blessing  never  gath- 
ered stronger  promise  of  fulfillment  than  in  the 
integrity  of  their  mutual  pledge.  Naturally,  they 
were  married  according  to  the  Jewish  rite.  And 
since  no  religion  seems  yet  to  have  demanded 
that  when  we  make  a  feast  we  should  invite  only 
the  highest  rank  of  our  acquaintances,  few,  it  is 
to  be  hoped,  will  be  offended  to  learn  that  among 
the  guests  at  Deronda's  little  wedding  feast  was 
the  entire  Cohen  family,  with  the  one  exception 
of  the  baby,  who  carried  on  her  teething  intelli- 
gently at  home.  How  could  Mordecai  have  borne 
that  those  friends  of  his  adversity  should  have 
been  shut  out  from  rejoicing  in  common  with  him  ? 

Mrs.  Meyrick  so  fully  understood  this  that  she 
had  quite  reconciled  herself  to  meeting  the  Jew- 
ish pawnbroker,  and  was  there  with  her  three 
daughters — all  of  them  enjoying  the  conscious- 
ness that  Mirah's  marriage  to  Deronda  crowned 
a  romance  which  would  always  make  a  sweet 
memory  to  them.  For  which  of  them,  mother  or 
girls,  had  not  had  a  generous  part  in  it — giving 
their  best  in  feeling  and  in  act  to  her  who  needed  ? 
If  Hans  could  have  been  there,  it  would  have 
been  better ;  but  Mab  had  already  observed  that 
men  must  suffer  for  being  so  inconvenient :  sup- 
pose she,  Kate,  and  Amy  had  all  fallen  in  love 
with  Mr.  Deronda  ? — but  being  women,  they  were 
not  so  ridiculous. 

The  Meyricks  were  rewarded  for  conquering 
their  prejudices  by  hearing  a  speech  from  Mr. 
Cohen,  which  had  the  rare  quality  among  speeches 
of  not  being  quite  after  the  usual  pattern.  Ja- 
cob ate  beyond  hia  years,  and  contributed  sev- 
eral small  whinnying  laughs  as  a  free  accom- 
paniment of  his  father's  speech,  not  irreverently, 
but  from  a  lively  sense  that  his  family  was  dis- 
tinguishing itself;  while  Adelaide  Rebekah,  in 
a  new  Sabbath  frock,  maintained  throughout  a 
grave  air  of  responsibility. 

Mordecai'a  brilliant  eyes,  sunken  in  their  large 
sockets,  dwelt  on  the  scene  with  the  cherishing 
benignancy  of  a  spirit  already  lifted  into  an  aloof- 
ness which  nullified  only  selfish  requirements  and 
left  sympathy  alive.  But  continually,  after  his 
gaze  had  been  traveling  round  on  the  others,  it 
returned  to  dwell  on  Deronda  with  a  fresh  gleam 
of  trusting  affection. 

The  wedding  feast  was  humble,  but  Mirah  was 


not  without  splendid  wedding  gifts.  As  soon  as 
the  betrothal  had  been  known,  there  were  friends 
who  had  entertained  graceful  devices.  Sir  Hugo 
and  Lady  Mallinger  had  taken  trouble  to  provide 
a  complete  equipment  for  Eastern  travel,  as  well 
as  a  precious  locket  containing  an  inscription: 
"  To  the  bride  of  our  dear  Daniel  Deronda  all 
blessings.—  If.  &  L.  M."  The  Klesmers  sent  a 
perfect  watch,  also  with  a  pretty  inscription. 

But  something  more  precious  than  gold  and 
gems  came  to  Deronda  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Diplow  on  the  morning  of  his  marriage.  It 
was  a  letter  containing  these  words : 

"  Do  not  think  of  me  sorrowfully  on  your  wed- 
ding day.  I  have  remembered  your  words :  that  I 
may  live  to  be  one  of  the  best  of  women,  who  make 
others  glad  that  they  were  born.  I  do  not  yet  see 
how  that  can  be,  but  you  know  better  than  I.  If 
it  ever  comes  true,  it  will  be  because  you  helped  me. 
I  only  thought  of  myself,  and  I  made  you  grieve. 
It  hurts  me  now  to  think  of  your  grief.  You 
must  not  grieve  any  more  for  me.  It  is  better — it 
shall  be  better  with  me  because  I  have  known  you. 
"  GWENDOLEN  GRANDCOURT." 

The  preparations  for  the  departure  of  all  three 
to  the  East  began  at  once ;  for  Deronda  could  not 
deny  Ezra's  wish  that  they  should  set  out  on  the 
voyage  forthwith,  so  that  he  might  go  with  them, 
instead  of  detaining  them  to  watch  over  him.  He 
had  no  belief  that  Ezra's  life  would  last  through 
the  voyage,  for  there  were  symptoms  which  seem- 
ed to  show  that  the  last  stage  of  his  malady  had 
set  in.  But  Ezra  himself  had  said,  "  Never  mind 
where  I  die,  so  that  I  am  with  you." 

He  did  not  set  out  with  them.  One  morning 
early  he  said  to  Deronda, "  Do  not  quit  me  to- 
day. I  shall  die  before  it  is  ended." 

He  chose  to  be  dressed  and  sit  up  in  his  easy- 
chair  as  usual,  Deronda  and  Mirah  on  each  side 
of  him,  and  for  some  hours  he  was  unusually  si- 
lent, not  even  making  the  effort  to  speak,  but 
looking  at  them  occasionally  with  eyes  full  of 
some  restful  meaning,  as  if  to  assure  them  that 
while  this  remnant  of  breathing -time  was  diffi- 
cult, he  felt  an  ocean  of  peace  beneath  him. 

It  was  not  till  late  in  the  afternoon,  when  the 
light  was  falling,  that  he  took  a  hand  of  each  in 
his,  and  said,  looking  at  Deronda,  "  Death  is  coin- 
ing to  me  as  the  divine  kiss  which  is  both  part- 
ing and  reunion  —  which  takes  me  from  your 
bodily  eyes  and  gives  me  full  presence  in  your 
soul.  Where  thou  goest,  Daniel,  I  shall  go.  Is 
it  not  begun  ?  Have  I  not  breathed  my  soul  into 
you  ?  We  shall  live  together." 

He  paused,  and  Deronda  waited,  thinking  that 
there  might  be  another  word  for  him.  But  slow- 
ly and  with  effort,  Ezra,  pressing  on  their  hands, 
raised  himself,  and  uttered  in  Hebrew  the  con- 
fession of  the  divine  Unity,  which  for  long  gen- 
erations has  been  on  the  lips  of  the  dying  Is- 
raelite. 

He  sank  back  gently  into  his  chair,  and  did 
not  speak  again.  But  it  was  some  hours  before 
he  had  ceased  to  breathe,  with  Mirah's  and  De- 
ronda's arms  around  him. 

"Nothing  is  here  for  tears,  nothing  to  wall 
Or  knock  the  breast:  no  weakness,  no  contempt, 
Dispraise,  or  blame;  nothing  but  well  find  fair, 
And  what  may  quiet  us  iu  a  death  so  iioble." 


THE  END. 


Novels  are  sweets.  All  people  with  healthy  literary  appetites  love  them— almost  all  women ;  a 
vast  number  of  clever,  hard-headed  men.  Judges,  bishops,  chancellors,  mathematicians,  are  notorious 
novel  readers,  as  well  as  young  boys  and  sweet  girls,  and  their  kind,  tender  mothers. — THACKERAY. 

Harper's  Select  Library  of  Fiction  rarely  includes  a  work  which  has  not  a  decided  charm,  either 
from  the  clearness  of  the  story,  the  significance  of  the  theme,  or  the  charm  of  the  execution ;  so  that  on 
setting  out  upon  a  journey,  or  providing  for  the  recreation  of  a  solitary  evening,  one  is  wise  and  safe  in 
procuring  the  later  numbers  of  this  attractive  series. — Boston  Transcript. 


A  COMPLETE  LIST  OF  NOVELS 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York, 


or  full  titles  and  description,  see  HARFEK'S  CATALOGUE,  which  will  le  sent  ly  mail 

on  receipt  of  ten  cents. 

The  Novels  in  this  List,  except  where  otherwise  designated,  are  in  Octavo,  pamphlet  form.    The 
Duodecimo  Novels  are  hound  in  Cloth,  unless  otherwise  specified. 


Miss  Dorothy's  Charge . 
Miss  Van  Kortland . . . 


Cloth 


AGUILAR'S  Home  Influence 12mo$l  00 

The  Mother's  Recompense 75 

ALNSWORTH'S  Crichton 12mo  1  50 

ALAMANCE 50 

ANDERSEN'S  (Hans  Christian)  The  Impro- 

visatore 50 

Only  a  Fiddler  and  O.T 50 

BACHELOR  of  the  Albany 12mo  1  50 

BAKER'S  Carter  Quarterman.    Illustrated.      75 

Inside :  a  Chronicle  of  Secession.     Ill's.  1  25 

Cloth  1  75 

The  New  Timothy 12mo  1  50 

BANIM'S  The  Smuggler 12mo  1  50 

BELIAL 50 

BELL'S  (Miss)  Julia  Howard 50 

BENEATH  the  Wheels 50 

BENEDICT'S  John  Worthington's  Name...  1  00 
Cloth      50 
00 
50 
00 
Cloth  1  50 

Mr.  Vaughan's  Heir 

My  Daughter  Elinor 

Cloth  1  50 

St.  Simon's  Niece 1  00 

Cloth  1  50 

BLACK'S  A  Daughter  of  Heth 50 

A  Princess  of  Thule 75 

Cloth  1  25 

In  Silk  Attire 50 

Kiltneny 50 

Love  or  Marriage  ? 50 

Madcap  Violet.     (In  Press.) 
The  Maid  of  Killeena,  and  Other  Stories.       50 
The  Monarch  of  Mincing  Lane.     Ill's.       50 
The  Strange  Adventures  of  a  Phaeton.       75 

Three  Feathers.     Illustrated 1  00 

Cloth  1  50 

BLACKMORE'S  Alice  Lorraine 75 

Cradock  Nowell 75 

Cripps  the  Carrier.     Illustrated 75 

Lorna  Doone 75 

The  Maid  of  Sker 75 

BLACKWELL'S   (Mrs.  A.  B.)  The   Island 

Neighbors.     Illustrated 75 


HJICK 

BORROWS  Lavengro $     75 

Romany  Rye 75 

BRADDON'S  (Miss)  Aurora  Floyd 75 

A  Strange  World 75 

Birds  of  Prey.     Illustrated 75 

Bound  to  John  Company.     Illustrated.       75 

Charlotte's  Inheritance 50 

Dead  Men's  Shoes 75 

Dead  Sea  Fruit.     Illustrations 50 

Eleanor's  Victory 75 

Fenton's  Quest.     Illustrated 50 

Hostages  to  Fortune.     Illustrated 75 

John  Marchmont's  Legacy 75 

Joshua  Haggard's  Daughter.    Illustra- 
ted.    (/»  Press.) 

Lost  for  Love.     Illustrated 75 

Publicans  and  Sinners 75 

Strangers  and  Pilgrims.      Illustrated.      75 

Taken  at  the  Flood 

The  Lovels  of  Arden.     Illustrated 

To  the  Bitter  End.    Illustrated 

BREACH  of  Promise.   

BREMER'S  (Miss)  Brothers  and  Sisters 

New  Sketches  of  E very-Day  Life 

Nina 

The  H.  Family 

The  Home 

The  Midnight  Sun 25 

The  Neighbors 50 

The  Parsonage  of  Mora 25 

The  President's  Daughters 25 

BRONTE'S  (Charlotte)  Jane  Eyre 75 

Illustrated.    12mo  1  50 

Shirley Jl  00 

Illustrated.     12mo  1  50 

Villette 75 

Illustrated.     12mo  1  50 

The  Professor.     Illustrated 12mo  1  50 

(Anna)  The   Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall. 

Illustrated.     12mo  1  50 
(Emily)  Wuthering  Heights.  Ill's... 12mo  1  50 

BROOKS'S  Sooner  or  Later.   Illustrated....  1  50 
Cloth  2  00 

The  Gordian  Knot 50 

The  Silver  Cord.     Illustrated 1  50 

Cloth  2  00 


A  Compete  List  of  Novels  published  by  Harper  6-  Brothers. 


FBIOE 

BROUG  HAM'S  Albert  Lunel $    75 

BKUNTON'S  (Mary)  Self-Control 75 

BULWER'S  Alice." £0 

A  Strange  Story.     Illustrated 1  00 

12mo  1  25 

Devereux 50 

Ernest  Maltravers 50 

Eugene  Aram 50 

Godolphin 50 

12mo  1  50 
Harold,  the  Last  of  the  Saxon  Kings. ...  1  00 

Kenelm  Chillingly 75 

12mo  1  25 

Leila 50 

12mo  1  00 

Lucretia 75 

My  Novel 1  50 

2  vols.  12mo  2  50 

Night  and  Morning 75 

Paul  Clifford 50 

Pausanias  the  Spartan 50 

12mo      75 

Pelham 75 

Rienzi 75 

The  Caxtons 75 

12mo  1  25 

The  Disowned 75 

The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii 50 

The  Last  of  the  Barons 1  00 

The  Pilgrims  of  the  Rhine 25 

The  Parisians.     Illustrated 1  00 

12mo  1  50 

What  will  He  do  with  it? 1  50 

Cloth  2  00 

Zanoni 50 

BULWER'S    (Robert— "Owen   Meredith") 

The  Ring  of  Amasis .12mo  1  50 

BURBURY'S  (Mrs.)  Florence  Sackville 75 

BURNEY'S  (Miss)  Evelina 12mo  1  00 

CAMPBELL'S  (Miss)  Self-Devotion 50 

C APRON'S  (Miss)  Helen  Lincoln 12mo  1  50 

CARLEN'S(Miss)Ivar;  or.  The  Skjuts-Boy.      50 

The  Brothers'  Bet ! 25 

The  Lover's  Stratagem 60 

CASTE.    By  the  Author  of  "Colonel  Dacre."      60 

CASTLETON'S  Salem 12mo  1  25 

CHARLES  Auchester 75 

CHURCH'S  (Mrs.  Ross)  Her  Lord  and  Master      60 

The  Prey  of  the  Gods 80 

CITIZEN  of  Prague 1  00 

CLARKE'S  The  Beauclercs,  Father  and  Son.       50 

His  Natural  Life 75 

COLLINS'S  (Mortimer)  The  Vivian  Romance.       50 
COLLINS'S  (Wilkie)  Armadale.  Illustrated.  1  00 

Antonina, 50 

Man  and  Wife.     Illustrated 1  00 

No  Name.     Illustrated 100 

Poor  Miss  Finch.    Illustrated 1  00 

The  Law  and  the  Lady.    Illustrated....      75 

The  Moonstone.     Illustrated 100 

JThe  New  Magdalen 50 

The  Two  Destinies.     Ill's.    (In  Pre«.) 
The  Woman  in  White.    Illustrated. . . .  1  00 
COLLINS'S    (Wilkie)    Illustrated   Library 

Edition 12mo,  per  vol.  1  50 


After  Dark,  and 
Other  Stories. 
Antonina. 
Armadale. 
Basil. 

Hide-and-Soek. 
Man  and  Wife. 
My  Miscellanies. 


No  Name. 
Poor  Miss  Finch. 
The  Dead  Secret. 
The  Law  and  the  Lady. 
The  Moonstone. 
The  New  Magdalen. 
The  Queen  of  Hearts. 
The  Woman  in  White. 


COLONEL  Dacre.  By  the  Author  of  "  Caste.".$    50 

CONSTANCE  Lyndsay 50 

COOKE'S  Henry  St.  John 12mo  1  50 

Leather  Stocking  and  Silk. 12mo  1  50 

CORN WALLIS'S  Pilgrims  of  Fashion.  12mo  1  00 
CRAIK'S  (Mrs.  D.  M.).     See  Miss  Mulock. 

(Miss  G.  M.)  Mildred 50 

Sylvia's  Choice 50 

CUNNINGHAM'S  Lord  Roldan 1  50 

CURTIS'S  Trumps.     Illustrated 12mo  2  00 

D'ARBOUVILLE'S  Tales 12mo  1  50 

D'lSRAELI'S  The  Young  Duke 12mo  1  50 

D'ORSAY'S  (Countess)  Clouded  Happiness.       50 

DANGEROUS  Guest,  A 50 

DE  BEAUVOIR'S  Safia 50 

DE  FOREST'S  Miss  Ravenel's  Conversion 

from  Secession  to  Loyalty 12mo  1  50 

Playing  the  Mischief. 75 

DE  MILLE'S  Cord  and  Creese.     Illustrated.       75 
Cloth   1  25 

The  American  Baron.    Illustrated 100 

Cloth   1  50 

The  Cryptogram.    Illustrated 1  50 


The  Dodge  Club.    Illustrated. 
The  Living  Link.  Illustrated. ... 


Cloth   2  00 

'  Cloth  1  25 
.........  1  00 

Cloth  1  50 
50 


DE  VIGNY'S  Cinq  Mars 

DENI  SON'S  (Mrs.)  Home  Pictures.  .  .  .r.>mo  1  £0 

DICKENS'S  Novels.     Illustrated. 

A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  ......................       50 

Cloth  1  00 
Barnaby  Rudge  .......................  1  00 

Cloth  1  50 
Bleak  House.. 


Christmas  Stories  

Cloth 

I  50 
00 

60 

00 
50 
00 
50 
00 
50 
00 
50 
00 
50 
(M) 
50 
50 
00 
00 
50 
(10 
50 
75 

David  Copperfield 

Cloth 

Cloth 

Great  Expectations  

Cloth 

Little  Dorrit 

Cloth 

Martin  Chuzzlewit         

Cloth 

Nicholas  Nickleby  

Cloth 

Oliver  Twist  

Cloth 

Our  Mutual  Friend.. 

Cloth 

Pickwick  Papers  

Cloth 

The  Old  Curiositv  Shop...., 

Cloth 

Cloth  1  25 
Bleak  House.    Illustrated.. 2  vols.,  12mo  3  00 

Hard  Times 60 

12mo  1  25 

Mrs.  Lirriper's  Legacy 10 

The  Mystery  of  Edw  in  Drood.    1 1 1's . . . .       25 

DILEMMA,  The 75 

DRAYTON 12mo  1  50 

DRURY'S  (Miss  A.  H.)  Eastbury 12mo  1  50 

Misrepresentation 1  00 

DUMAS'S  (Alex.)  Amaury 50 

Ascanio 75 

Chevalier  d'Harmental 50 

DUPUY'S  (Miss  E.A.)Country  Neighborhood     50 
The  Huguenot  Exiles 12mo  1  25 


A  Complete  List  of  Novels  ptiblished  by  Harper  6-  Brothers. 


EDGEWORTH'S  (Miss)  Novels.     Engrav- 
ings  10  vols.,  12mo,  per  vol.$l  50 

Vol.  I.  Castle  Rackrent;  Essay  on 
Irish  Bulls ;  Essay  on  Self-Justification ; 
The  Prussian  Vase ;  The  Good  Aunt. 
Vol.  II.  Angelina;  TheGoodFrench 
Governess;  Mademoiselle  Panache;  The 
Knapsack;  Lame  Jervis ;  The  Will ; 
Out  of  Debt,  Out  of  Danger ;  The  Lim- 
erick Gloves ;  The  Lottery ;  Eosanna. 
Vol.111.  Mu>  ad  the  Unlucky;  The 
Manufacturers;  Ennui;  The  Con- 
trast; The  Grateful  Negro;  To-mor- 
row ;  The  Dun. 

Vol.  IV.   Manoeuvring;   Almeria; 
Vivian. 

Vol.-V.  The  Absentee;  Madame  de 
Fleury ;    Emilv  de   Boulanges ;    The 
Modern  Griselda.      [Vol.  VI. Belinda. 
Vol.  VII.  Leonora;  Letters  on  Fe- 
male Education ;  Patronage. 

Vol.VIII.Patronage;  Comic  Dramas. 
Vol.  IX.  Harrington ;  Thoughts  on 
Bores ;  Ormond.        [Vol.  X.  Helen. 

Frank 2  vols.  18mo  1  50 

Harry  and  Lucy 2  vols.  18mo  3  00 

Moral  Tales 2  vols.  18mo  1  50 

Popular  .Tales 2  vols.  18mo  1  50 

Kosamond 12mo   1  50 

EDWARDS'S  (Amelia  B.)  Barbara's  History.       75 

Debenham's  Vow.    Illustrated 75 

Half  a  Million  of  Money 75 

Hand  and  Glove 50 

MissCarew 50 

My  Brother's  Wife 50 

The  Ladder  of  Life 50 

(M.  B.)  Kitty 50 

EILOART'S  (Mrs.)  Curate's  Discipline 50 

From  Thistles— Grapes  ? 50 

The  Love  that  Lived 50 

ELIOT'S  (George)  Novels. 

Adam  Bede.     Illustrated 12mo  1  50 

Daniel  Deronda 1  50 

Cloth  2  00 
2  vols.  12mo  3  00 

Felix  Holt,  the  Radical 75 

Illustrated.    12mo  1  50 

Middlemarch 1  50 

Cloth  2  00 
2  vols.  12mo  3  00 

Romola.    Illustrated 75 

12mo  1  50 

Scenes  of  Clerical  Life 75 

Silas  Marner 12mo       75 

Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  and  Silas  Marner. 

In  one  volume.     Illustrated.     12mo  1  50 

The  Mill  on  the  Floss 75 

Illustrated.     12mo  1  50 
ELLIS'S  (Mrs.)  Chapters  on  Wives. . .  .12mo  1  50 

Home 12mo  1  50 

Look  to  the  End 50 

Temper  and  Temperament 12mo       75 

ESTELLE  Russell 75 

FALKENBURG 75 

FARJEON'S  An  Island  Pearl..     Illustrated       35 

At  the  Sign  of  the  Silver  Flagon 40 

Blade-o'-Grass.     Illustrations 35 

Bread-and-Cheese  and  Kisses.     Ill's 35 

Golden  Grain .     Illustrated 35 

Grif 40 

Cloth      90 
Jessie  Trim....  50 


FARJEON'S  Joshua  Marvel $     40 

Cloth      90 

London's  Heart.     Illustrated 1  00 

Cloth  1  50 

Love's  Victory 25 

The  Duchess  of  Rosemary  Lane.     (In 

Press.) 

The  King  of  No-Land.     Illustrated....       25 
Christmas  Stories.     In  one  vol.    Cloth  2  CO 

FEMALE  Minister,  The 50 

FENN'S  Ship  Ahoy  !     Illustrated 40 

The  Treasure'llunters 40 

FERR I  ER'S  (Miss)  Marriage 50 

FIELDING'S  Amelia 12mo  1  50 

Tom  Jones 2  vols,  12mo  2  75 

FIRST  Friendship,  A 50 

FIVE  Hundred  Pounds  Reward 50 

FLAGG'S  A  Good  Investment.     Illustrated.      50 

FRANCILLON'S  The  Earl's  Dene 50 

FREYTAG'S  Debit  and  Credit 12mo  1  50 

FULLOM'S  Daughter  of  Night 50 

GARIBALDI'S  Rule  of  the  Monk 50 

GASKELL'S  (Mrs.)  A  Dark  Night's  Work . .      50 

Cousin  Phillis 25 

Cranford 12mo  1  25 

Mary  Barton 50 

Moorland  Cottage 18mo      75 

My  Lady  Ludlow. 25 

North  and  South 50 

Right  at  Last,  &c 12mo  1  50 

Svlvia's  Lovers 75 

Wives  and  Daughters.     Illustrations. . .  1  00 
Cloth  1  50 

GIBBON'S  For  Lack  of  Gold 50 

For  the  King 50 

In  Honor  Bound '* 50 

Robin  Gray. 50 

GILBERT  Rugge 1  00 

GODDARD'S  (Julia)  Baffled 75 

GODWIN'S  Caleb  Williams 16mo,  Paper      37 

Cloth  1  00 
GOLDSMITH'SVicarpfWakencld.l8mo,Cloth    75 

GOLD  Worshipers 50 

GORE'S  (Mrs.)  Peers  and  Parvenus 50 

The  Banker's  Wife £0 

The  Birthright 25 

The  Queen  of  Denmark 50 

The  Royal  Favorite 50 

GRATTAN'S  Chance  Light  Medley 50 

GREEN  Hand,  The 75 

GREENWOOD'S  True  History  of  a  Little 

Ragamuffin 50 

GREY'S  (Mrs.)  The  Bosom  Friend 50 

The  Gambler's  Wife 50 

The  Young  Husband 50 

GWYNNE'S  The  School  for  Fathers. .  .12mo  1  25 

HAKLANDER'S  Clara. 12.no  1  50 

HALL'S  (Mrs.  S.  C.)  Midsummer  Eve 50 

Tales  of  Woman's  Trials 75 

The  Whiteboy 50 

HAMILTON'S  Cyril  Thornton 12mp  1  50 

H AMLEY'S  Lady  Lee's  Widowhood 50 

HANNAY'S  (D.)  Ned  Allen 50 

(J.)  Singleton  Fontenoy 50 

HARDY'S  (Lady)  Daisy  Ni'chol 50 

HAVERS'S  (Do'ra)  Jack's  Sister 75 

HAY'S  (Mary  Cecil)  Hidden  Perils 75 

Old  Myddelton's  Money 50 

The  Squire's  Legacy 75 

Victor  and  Vanquished 50 

HEALEY 50 

HEIE  Expectant,  The 50 


A  Complete  List  of  Novels  published  by  Harper  6-  Brothers. 


HIDDEN  Sin,  The $1  00 

Cloth  1  50 

HOEY'S  (Mrs.)  A  Golden  Sorrow 50 

The  Blossoming  of  an  Aloe 50 

HOFL  AND'S  (Mrs.)  Daniel  Dennison 50 

The  Czarina  50 

The  Unloved  One 50 

HOPE'S  Anastasius 12mo  1  50 

HOPKINS'S  (Ellice)  Rose  Turquand 50 

HOWITT'S  (Mary)  The  Author's  Daughter.      25 
Who  Shall  be  Greatest  ?...„. 18mo,  Cloth      75 

The  Heir  of  Wast  Wayland 12mo  1  50 

(Wm.)  Jack  of  the  Mill 25 

HUBBACK'S  Wife's  Sister 50 

HUGO'S  Ninety-Three.     Illustrated 25 

12mo  1  75 

The  Toilers  of  the  Sea.    Illustrated 75 

Cloth  1  50 
HUNGERFORD'SThe01dPlantation.l2mo.  1  50 

HUNT'S  The  Foster  Brother 50 

INCHBALD'S  (Mrs.)  A  Simple  Story 50 

IN  Duty  Bound.     Illustrated 50 

ISABEL 18mo,  Cloth      75 

ISEULTE 50 

JAMES'S  Agincourt 50 

Agnes  Sorel 50 

Aims  and  Obstacles 50 

A  Life  of  Vicissitudes 50 

Arabella  Stuart 50 

ArrahNeil 50 

A  Whim  and  its  Consequences 50 

Beauchamp 75 

Forest  Days 50 

Cowrie ;  or,  The  King's  Plot 50 

Heidelberg 50 

Henry  Smeaton 50 

Leonora  d'Orco 50 

Margaret  Graham 25 

Pequinillo 50 

Rose  d'Albret 50 

Russell 50 

Sir  Theodore  Broughton 50 

The  Castle  of  Ehrenstein 50 

The  Commissioner 1  00 

The  Convict 50 

The  False  Heir 50 

The  Fate 50 

The  Forgery 50 

The  Last  of  the  Fairies 25 

The  Old  Dominion 50 

The  Old  Oak  Chest 50 

The  Step-Mother 1  25 

The  Smuggler 75 

The  Woodman 75 

Thirty  Years  Since 75 

Ticonderoga 50 

Attila 12mo  1  50 

Charles  Tyrrel 12mo  1  50 

Corse  delion 12mo  1  50 

Darnley 12mo  1  50 

De  L'Orme 12mo  1  50 

Henry  Masterton 12mo  1  50 

Henry  of  Guise 12mo  1  50 

John  Marston  Hall 12mo  1  50 

Mary  of  Burgundy 12mo  1  50 

Morley  Ernstein 12mo  1  50 

One  in  a  Thousand I2mo  1  50 

Philip  Augustus 12mo  1  50 

Richelieu 12mo  1  50 

The  Ancient  Regime 12mo  1  50 

The  Club  Book 12mo  1  50 


JAMES'S  The  Desultory  Man I2mo$l  50 

The  Gentleman  of  the  Old  School.  .12mo  1  50 

The  Gipsy 12mo  50 

The  Huguenot 12mo  50 

The  Jacquerie 12mo  50 

The  King's  Highway 12mo  50 

The  Man  at  Arms 12mo  50 

The  Robber 12mo  50 

The  String  of  Pearls 12mo  25 

JEAFFRESON'S  Isabel 12mo  50 

Live  it  Down 00 

Lottie  Darling 75 

Not  Dead  Yet ; 25 

Cloth  75 

Olive  Blake's  Good  Work 75 

JENKINS'S  The  Devil's  Chain.    Ill's.  12mo  50 

.       Cloth  75 

JESSIE'S  Flirtations 50 

JERROLD'S  Chronicles  of  Clovernook 25 

JEWSBURY'S  (Miss)  Constance  Herbert. . .  50 

The  Adopted  Child 16mo.  1  00 

Zoe 50 

J I LT,  The 50 

JOHNSON'S  (Miss)  A  Sack  of  Gold 50 

Joseph  the  Jew 50 

The  Calderwood  Secret 50 

KATHLEEN 50 

KING'S  (Katharine)  Hugh  Melton.     Illus- 
trated        25 

Off  the  Roll 75 

Our  Detachment 50 

KINGSLEY'S  (Chas.)  Alton  Locke  . . .  .12mo  1  50 

Yeast 12mo  1  50 

(Henry)  Hetty 25 

Stretton 40 

KNORRING'S  The  Peasant  and  his  Landlord. 

12mo  1  50 

KNOWLES'S  Fortescue 1  00 

LAJETCHNIKOFF'S  The  Heretic 50 

LAMARTINE'S  Genevieve.. .  .12mo,  Paper      25 

Raphael 12mo  1  25 

The  Stone  Mason  of  St.  Point 12mo  1  25 

LAWRENCE'S  (Geo.  A.)  Anteros 50 

Brakespeare 50 

Breaking  a  Butterfly 35 

Guy  Livingstone 12mo  1  50 

Hagarene 75 

Maurice  Dering 50 

SansMerci 60 

Sword  and  Gown 25 

LEE'S  (Holme)  Annis  Warleigh's  Fortunes.       75 

Kathie  Brando 12mo  1  50 

Mr.  Wynyard's  Ward 50 

Sylvan  Holt's  Daughter 12mo  1  50 

LE  FANU'S  All  in  the  Dark 50 

A  Lost  Name 50 

Guy  Deverell 50 

The  Tenants  of  Malory 50 

UncleSilas 75 

LE  SAGE'S  Gil  Bias 12mo  1  50 

LEVER'S  A  Day's  Ride 50 

Barrington 75 

Gerald  Fitzgerald 50 

Lord  Kilgobbin.     Illustrations 1  00 

Cloth  1  50 

Luttrell  of  Arran 1  00 

Cloth  1  50 

Maurice  Tiernay 1  00 

One  of  Them 75 

Roland  Cashel.     Illustrations 1  25 

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A  Complete  List  of  Novels  published  by  Harper  6-  Brothers. 


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A  Complete  List  of  Novels  published  by  Harper  6-  Brothers. 


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HOUSEHOLD    EDITIONS 


GEORGE  ELIOT,  CHARLES  READE,  AND  V,  M,  THACKERAY, 

PUBLISHED  BY 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


W.  M.  THACKERAY. 

NOVELS:  Vanity  Fair. —  Pendennis.  —  The  Newcomes. — The 
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Mr.  Trevelyan  has  written  the  memoir  of  his  uncle 
with  as  much  good  taste  as  grateful  and  affectionate 
feeliug.*  *  *  Mr.  Trevelyau  has  chiefly  relied  ou  copious 
selections  from  a  mass  of  the  most  unreserved  family 
correspondence ;  for  from  his  boyhood  to  the  latest 
days  of  his  career  Macaulay  lived  with  IMa  sisters  on 
terms  of  the  most  loving  intimacy,  making  them  the 
confidants  of  all  his  hopes  and  feelings.  His  letters 
to  Lady  Trevelyan  and  the  others,  while  they  bubble 
over  with  verve  and  playfulness,  resemble  rather  those 
private  journals  which  some  men  keep  for  their  own 
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It  is  rarely  that  a  biography  of  a  man  of  letters,  a 
poet  and  a  statesman,  a  man  of  the  world  and  a  re- 
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c*an  be  otherwise  than  interesting.  It  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  one  half  so  full  of  interest  in  its  details, 
and  narrated  so  simply,  eloquently,  and  judiciously, 
as  this  Life  of  Macaulay  by  his  nephew.  *  *  *  There  is 
not  merely  not  one  page  that  is  dull,  but  there  is  not  a 
page  which  has  not  some  variety  of  charm  to  attract 
find  absorb  the  delighted  reader. — Notes  and  Queries, 
London. 

The  biography  is  in  every  respect  worthy  of  the 
subject.  Mr.  Trevelyan  b^as.;  executed  his  task  with 
most  praiseworthy  modesty  and  good  taste,  and  with 
great  literary  skill.  *  *  *  Macriulay's  Life  forms  a  most 
interesting  book,  living  as  he  did  in  the  thick  of  the 
literary  and  political  activity  of  his  time.  It  affords 
us  many  fresh  pictures  of  incidents  iu  which  he  played 
a  part,  and  amusing  and  instructive  anecdotes  of  the 
celebrities  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  and,  above 
all,  it  throws  a  g»eat  deal  of  unexpected  light  on  his 
own  personal  character.  •  «  »  Nothing  could  surpass 
the  charm  of  those  portions  of  the  biography  iu  which 
Mr.  Trevelyan  pictures  Macaulay  at  home,  from  the 
time  when,  already  a  man  in  learning,  he  romanced 
with  his  playmates  on  Clapham  Common,  to  the  time 
when,  still  a  boy  in  animal  spirits,  he  wrote  to  his  sis- 
ters, from  the  smoking-room  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, exuberantly  lively  and  brilliant  descriptions  of 
the  great  Reform  debates,  or  spent  evenings  with  them 
in  Great  Ormoud  Street,  punning,  reciting,  and  cap- 
ping verses,  iu  the  intervals  between  his  astonishing 
the  House  with  displays  of  oratory  which  excelled 
every  thing  heard  "since  Plunket;"  or  later  still, 
when,  in  the  intervals  of  composing  his  history,  he 
took  his  nephews  and  nieces  with  him  on  holiday 
tours,  and  kept  them  in  fits  of  laughter  with  puns, 
rhymes,  and  tales,  from  one  end  of  a  railway  journey 
to  the  other. — Examiner,  London. 

Macaulay  is  only  known  to  the  great  mass  of  his 
readers  as  a  stately  intellectual  giant.  But  here  we 
see  him  as  he  was  in  his  early  home,  in  his  boyhood, 
when  at  school,  during  the  growth  and  development 
of  those  rare  powers  which  have  made  his  name  im- 
mortal, while  in  Parliament.and  while  passing  through 
the  perilous  currents  of  success  and  adulation. — Al- 
bany Evening  Journal. 


Interesting  not  merely  as  a  fall  and  appreciative 
biography  of  a  man  whose  influence  in  the  world 
of  letters  is  constantly  widening  rather  than  lessen- 
ng,  but  from  the  fact  that  it  contains  a  large  num- 
ber of  Macaulay's  letters,  written  freely,  and  without 
constraint  as  to  either  matter  or  style,  to  his  most 
.ntimate  friends.  It  gives  us  not  only  the  biogra- 
pher's view  of  him,  but  his  own  self-revelations,  as  dis- 
coverable in  the  spontaneous  expressions  of  his  men- 
tal moods.  Incidentally  there  comes  in  much,  of 
course,  concerning  politics  and  literature  in  Macaulay's 
time,  but  the  central  figure  is  Macaulay  himself,  as 
revealed  in  his  letters,  speeches,  and  public  acts,  or 
as  described  by  his  biographer.— Boston  Journal. 

We  do  not  doubt  that  these  volumes  will  be  read 
throughout  the  world  with  a  curiosity  and  an  interest 
only  to  be  surpassed  by  the  success  of  Lord  Macau- 
lay's  own  writings.— Edinburgh  Review. 

Mr.  Trevelyau  has  produced,  from  very  rich  and  at- 
tractive materials,  a  very  delightful  book Spectator, 

London. 

This  work  is  sure  to  be  a  delightful  surprise  even  to 
the  most  insatiable  devourer  of  biographies.  To  say 
that  it  is  worthy  of  the  great  man  whose  life  it  de- 
scribes is  both  high  and  deserved  praise,  but  this  i8 
only  a  vague  characterization  of  the  memoir.  Macau- 
lay  has  occupied  so  stately  a  place  in  English  litera- 
ture, his  name  is  so  exclusively  associated  with  the 
dignified  and  severe,  that  it  is  hard  to  think  of  him 
save  as  a  purely  intellectual  man  entirely  removed 
from,  and  elevated  above,  the  passions  of  common 
humanity.  Here,  however,  we  have  him  precisely  as 
he  was,  and  the  main  features  of  the  portrait  are 
drawn  by  his  own  hand.  Hereafter  he  will  not  only 
be  venerated  as  one  of  the  master  minds  of  his  age, 
he  will  be  loved  as  a  man  of  earnest  and  strong  do- 
mestic affections,  and  of  singular  breadth  and  strength 
of  character.  For  these  reasons  as  well  as  for  the 
frankness  and  cleverness  with  which  his  nephew  has 
filled  up  the  outlines  of  the  portrait  Macaulay  has 
drawn  of  himself,  this  is  sure  to  be  a  classic  among 
biographies.— A'.  Y.Times. 

The  correspondence  which  fills  so  large  a  space  ia 
remarkable  for  its  naturalness  and  freedom,  written 
without  the  slightest  aim  at  literary  effect,  and  relating 
the  current  events  of  the  day  with  the  frankness  and 
hilarity  of  a  roystering  school-boy.  Macaulay's  warm 
domestic  affections  crop  out  on  every  occasion,  and 
the  whole  tone  of  the  letters  indicates  a  man  of  unaf- 
fected simplicity  of  character  and  true  nobleness  of 
purpose.  His  sketches  of  the  literary  society  of 
London  of  which  he  was  not  to  "  the  manner  born," 
will  charm  many  readers  who  retain  a  taste  for  per- 
sonal gossip  about  famous  writers. — fi.  Y.  Tribune. 

The  picture  given  of  Macaulay  deepens  our  admira- 
tion for  him  into  respect  and  even  love.  He  is  shown 
to  have  been  one  of  the  best  of  sons  and  of  brothers, 
a  man  in  whom  the  domestic  affections  were  of  the 
strongest,  the  delight  and  life  of  his  home,  where  he 
was  almost  adored,  and  one  of  the  most  winning  and 
amiable  of  men.  *  *  *  His  letters  to  his  sisters  are  not 
only  overflowing  with  affection,  but  full  of  life  and 
fun  and  gayety.  He  takes  time  in  his  busiest  hours  to 
write  them  frequently  whatever  he  thinks  will  interest 
and  amuse  them. — iY.  Y.  Evening  Mail. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS  will  send  the  above  work  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the 
United  States  or  Canada,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


MOTLEY'S    HISTOEIES. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  will  fend  any  of  thi  following  books  by  mail,  postagi  prepaid,  to  any  fart  of  the 

United  States  or  Canada,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 

HARPER'S  NEW  AND  ENLARGED  CATALOGUE,  with  a  Complete  Analytical  Index,  sent  by  mail  OH  receipt 
of  tJie  price. 


The  Dutch  Republic. 


The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  A 
LL.D.,  D.C.L.  With  a  Portrait  of 
$10  50;  Sheep,  $12  oo  ;  Half  Calf, 

Mr.  Motley's  work  is  an  important  one,  the  result  of 
profound  research,  sincere  convictions,  sound  princi- 
ples, and  manly  sentiments ;  a»d  even  those  who  are 
most  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  period  will  find 
iu  it  a  fresh  and  vivid  addition  to  their  previous  knowl- 
edge. It  does  honor  to  American  literature,  and  would 
do  honor  to  the  literature  of  any  country  in  the  world. 
— Edinburgh  Review. 

A  truly  noble  work — brilliant  in  style,  generous  in 
tone. — GEORGE  8.  HII.I.ARD. 

To  the  illustration  of  this  period  Mr.  Motley  has 
brought  the  matured  powers  of  a  vigorous  and  brilliant 
mind,  and  the  abundant  fruits  of  patient  and  judicious 
Study  and  deep  reflection Xorth  American  Review. 


History.     By  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY, 
William  of  Orange.     3  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth, 
Extra,  $17  25. 

A  serious  chasm  in  English  historical  literature  has 
been  (by  this  book)  very  remarkably  filled.  •  *  *  A  his- 
tory as  complete  as  industry  and  genius  can  make  !t 
now  lies  before  us,  of  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  Re- 
volt of  the  United  Provinces.  •  •  *  All  the  essentials 
of  a  great  writer  Mr.  Motley  eminently  possesses.  His 
mind  is  broad,  his  industry  unwearied.  In  power  of 
dramatic  description  no  modern  historian,  except  per- 
haps Mr.  Carlyle,  surpasses  him,  and  in  analysis  of 
character  he  is  elaborate  and  distinct. — Westminster 
Review. 

The  best  contribution  to  modern  history  that  has 
yet  been  made  by  an  American. — Methodist  Quarterly 
Review. 


The   United  Netherlands. 

History  of  the  United  Netherlands ;  from  the  Death  of  William  the  Silent  to  the 
Twelve  Years'  Truce.  With  a  full  View  of  the  English-Dutch  Struggle 
against  Spain,  and  of  the  Origin  and  Destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada. 
By  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  Portraits.  4  vols.,  8vo,  Cloth, 
$14  oo  ;  Sheep,  $16  oo  ;  Half  Calf,  Extra,  $23  oo. 


This  story  Mr.  Motley  has  narrated  with  increase  of 
his  old  brilliancy,  power,  and  success.  In  its  episodes 
and  other  by-ways  the  story  is  as  glowing,  nervous, 

inl  interesting  as  in  the  main  details  of  the  marvelous 


contest.—  Athencewn,  London. 
One  of  the  most  fascinating 


»s  well  as  important 


histories  of  the  century.— Cor.  N.  Y.  Evening  Post. 

Fertile  as  the  present  has  been  in  historical  works 
of  the  highest  merit,  none  of  them  can  be  Dunked  above 
these  volumes  in  the  grand  qualities  of  interest,  ac- 
curacy, and  truth.— Edinburgh  Review. 


His  history  is  as  interesting  ns  a  romance,  and 


>f  Euclid.    Clio  never  had 
We  advise  every  render 


as  reliable  as  a  proposition 

a  more  faithful  disciple 

whose  means  will  permit  to  become  the  owner  of  these 

fascinating  volumes,  assuring  him  that  he  will  never 

regret  the  investment. — Christian  Intelligencer. 

Mr.  Motley,  the  American  historian  of  the  United 
Netherlands— we  owe  him  English  homage.— Times, 
London. 

Mr.  Motley's  prose  epic.—  Spectator,  London. 

This  noble  work.— Westminster  Rtview. 


John  of  Barneveld. 


The  Life  and  Death  of  John  of  Barneveld,  Advocate  of  Holland.  With  a  View 
of  the  Primary  Causes  and  Movements  of  "  The  Thirty- Years'  War."  By 
JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.  With  Illustrations.  2  vols.,  8vo, 
Cloth,  $7  oo ;  Sheep,  $8  oo  ;  Half  Calf,  Extra,  $n  50. 


His  work  has  the  air  of  a  powerful  tragedy,  inspir- 
ing pity  and  terror  in  the  evolution  of  its  plot,  but  it 
is  no  less  a  narrative  of  historical  facts  exhibiting  the 
scenes  of  the  past  with  the  majesty  of  troth.  Mr.  Mot- 
ley is  one  of  the  grand  writers  the  movement  of  whose 
style  reminds  ns  of  the  etride  of  a  healthy  athlete, 
rather  than  of  the  dainty  steps  of  an  effeminate  exquis- 
ite.-A:  Y.  Tribune. 

Mr.  Motley's  peculiar  qualifications  for  his  task— his 
minute  and  exact  knowledge  of  his  subject  in  all  its 
ramifications,  his  enthusiastic  love  of  liberty,  his  skill 


in  character  painting,  the  vigor  and  brilliancy  of  his 
style  — have  been  universally  recognized.  He  has 
spent  many  years  in  studying  the  original  authorities 
on  the  spot ;  and  probably  very  few  persons,  eveu 
among  the  Dutch  themselves,  have  so  thorough  a 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  Netherlands  as  Mr. 
Motley.  In  his  new  volumes  we  find  not  a  few  in- 
stances of  his  skill  in  presenting,  by  a  few  graphic 
touches,  a  portrait  which  every  reader  will  carry  away 
in  his  memory  as  a  lifelike  picture.  —Boston  Tran- 
script. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


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